THE DISINTEGRATION OF THE OPEN-FIELDS
For the reasons given in the last chapter, bailiff-farming rapidly
gave way to the various forms of the leasehold system in the
fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. The economic basis of
serfdom was destroyed; a servile tenement could no longer be depended
upon to supply an able-bodied man to do work on the demesne for
several days a week throughout the year, with extra helpers from his
family at harvest time. The money received in commutation of customary
labor, or as rent from land which had formerly been held for services
was far less than the value of the services, and would not pay the
wages of free men hired in place of the serfs who had formerly
performed the labor. Moreover, the demesne land itself was for the
most part so unproductive that it had hardly paid to cultivate it even
at the slight expense incurred in furnishing food for the serfs
employed; it was all the more a waste of money to hire men to plow it
and sow it.
The text books on economic history usually give a careful account of
the various forms of leases which were used as bailiff-farming was
abandoned. We are told how the demesne was leased either as a whole or
in larger or smaller pieces to different tenants and sets of tenants,
for lives, for longer or shorter periods of years, with or without the
stock which was on it, and, in some cases, with the servile labor of
some of the villains, when this had not all been excused or commuted
into money payments. Arrangements necessarily differed on the
different manors, and the exact terms of these first experimental
leases do not concern us here.
The fact which does interest us is that with the cessation of bailiff
farming the last attempt at keeping the land distributed in fairly
equal shares among a large number of tenants was abandoned. Bond land
had been divided into portions which were each supposed to be
sufficient for the maintenance of a laborer and his family. As long as
the demesne was cultivated for the lord, it was to his interest to
prevent the concentration of holdings in a few hands, unless some
certain provision could be made to insure the performance of the labor
due from all of them. But even when the demesne was still being
managed for the lord, it had already become necessary in some cases to
allow one man to hold two or more of these portions, for the
productivity had so declined that one was no longer enough. Now, with
the leasing of the demesne, the lord no longer had an interest in
maintaining the working population of the manor at a certain level,
but was concerned with the problem of getting as much rent as
possible. When the demesne and the vacant bond tenements began to be
leased, the land was given to the highest bidder, and the competitive
system was introduced at the start. This led to the gradual
accumulation of large holdings by some tenants, while other men were
still working very small portions, and others occupied holdings of
every intermediate size. The uniformity of size characteristic of the
early virgates disappeared. In this chapter these points will be
considered briefly, and a study will also be made of the way in which
these new holders managed their lands.
In the first place, as the more destitute villains were giving up
their holdings and leaving the manor, and as no one could be found to
take their places on the old terms, the landlords gave up the policy
of holding the land until someone should be willing to pay the
accustomed services and let the vacant lands at the best rents
obtainable. Freeholders, and villains whose land was but lightly
burdened, and those who by superior management had been able to make
both ends meet, were now able to increase their holdings by adding a
few acres of land which had been a part of the demesne or of a vacated
holding. The case of the man at Sutton, who took up three virgates and
a cotland, has already been mentioned. Another case of "engrossing,"
as it was called, dated from 1347-1348 at Meon, where John Blackman
paid fines for one messuage with ten acres of land, two other
messuages with a virgate of land each, one parcel of four acres, and
another holding whose nature is not specified.[87]
Legislators who observed this tendency issued edicts against it. No
attempt was made to discover the underlying cause of which it was
merely a symptom. The first agrarian statutes were of a
characteristically restrictive nature, and no constructive policy was
attempted by the government until after a century of futile attempts
to deal with the separate evils of engrossing, enclosure, conversion
to pasture, destruction of houses and rural depopulation. The first
remedy these evils suggested was limitation of the amount of land
which one man should be allowed to hold.[88] In 1489 the statutes
begin to prohibit the occupation of more than one farm by the same
man, or to regulate the use of the land so occupied. The statute of
1489 refers to the Isle of Wight, where "Many dwelling places, fermes,
and fermeholdes have of late tyme ben used to be taken in to oon manys
hold and handes, that of old tyme were wont to be in severall persons
holdes and handes."[89] The proclamation of 1514 regulated the use of
land held by all persons who were tenants of more than _one_ farm.[90]
A law of 1533 provides that no person should occupy more than _two_
farms.[91]
The old villain holdings did not necessarily pass intact into the
hands of one holder, but were sometimes divided up and taken by
different men, a few acres at a time. One Richard Grene in 1582 held
lands of which ten and a half acres had been gradually acquired
through as many as ten grants. This land had formed part of six other
holdings, and much of the rest of the land belonging to these holdings
had also been alienated.[92] The Inquisition of 1517 reported numerous
cases of engrossing, and Professor Gay notes some of the entries in
the returns of the Inquisition of 1607 which are also interesting in
this connection: W. S. separated six yardlands from a manor house and
put a widow in the house, a laborer in the kitchen and a weaver in the
barn. The land was divided between two tenants who already had houses,
and presumably, other land, and were taking this opportunity to
enlarge their holdings of land. G. K. took from a farmhouse the land
which formed part of the same tenement and leased the house to a
laborer who had "but one acre of land in every field."[93]
The growing irregularity of holdings, combined with the decrease in
the number of holders whose interests had to be consulted, made it
easier than it had formerly been to modify the traditional routine of
husbandry. Even though the new land acquired by tenants from the
demesne or from old bond-holdings did not happen to be adjacent to
strips already in their possession, exchange could accomplish the
desired result. At Gorleston, Suffolk, a tenant sublet about half of
his holding to eight persons, and at the same time acquired plots of
land for himself from another eight holdings.[94] Before 1350
exchanges, sales and subletting of land by tenants had become general
on the manors of the Bishopric of Winchester. It is unusual to find
more than two cases of exchanges in any one year, even on a large
manor; but Miss Levett adds: "On the other hand, one can hardly look
through the fines on any one of the episcopal manors for a period of
ten years without finding one or two. From the close correspondence of
the areas exchanged, together with exact details as to position, it is
fairly clear that the object of the exchange was to obtain more
compact holdings."[95]
Fitzherbert writes that "By the assente of the Lordes and tenauntes,
euery neyghbour may exchange lands with other."[96] This practice was
especially sanctioned by law in 1597 "for the more comodious
occupyinge or husbandrie of anye Land, Meadows, or Pastures,"[97] but
it was common in the open-field villages before the legal permission
was given. Tawney reproduces several maps belonging to All Souls'
Muniment Room, which show the ownership of certain open-field
holdings of about 1590. Here consolidation of plots had proceeded
noticeably. There are several plots of considerable size held by a
single tenant.
The advantage of consolidated holdings are considerable. In the first
place, the turf boundaries between the strips could be plowed up, or
the direction of the plowing itself could be changed, if enough strips
were thrown together. Fitzherbert advises the farmer who has a number
of strips lying side by side and who
hath no dung nor shepe to compost nor dung his land withall. Then
let the husband take his ploughe, and cast al such landes three
or four tymes togider, and make theyr rigge theyr as ye raine was
before.... And so shel he finde new moulde, that was not sene in
an hundred yeres before, the which must nedes gyue more corne
than the other dydde before.[98]
In two Elizabethan surveys examined by Corbett, we have evidence that
the theoretical advantages urged by Fitzherbert were not unknown in
practice. It is now and then stated that the _metae_ between strips
have been plowed up. But sometimes, even though all of the strips in a
furlong had been acquired by the same owner, and enclosed, the land
was left in strips. Some of the pieces were freehold, others copyhold,
and the lord may have objected to having the boundaries
obliterated.[99] Cross plowing is also occasionally referred to in
these surveys, but it was apparently rare.[99]
The possibility of improvement in this direction, although not to be
ignored, was, however, comparatively slight. The important changes
which resulted from the increased size of the holdings were not so
much in the direction of superior management of the land, as in that
of making a selection between the different qualities of land, and
cultivating only the land in comparatively good condition. Tenants
taking up additional land cultivated only a part of their enlarged
holdings. The least productive strips were allowed to become overgrown
with grass. The better strips were kept under crop.
If we are to accept the testimony of Fitzherbert and Tusser, strips of
grass in the common fields, or lea land, as it was called, were a
feature of every open-field township, by the sixteenth century.
According to Fitzherbert, "in euery towneshyppe that standeth in
tillage in the playne countrye, there be ... leyse to tye or tedder
theyr horses and mares vpon."[100] According to Tusser, the process of
laying to grass unproductive land was still going on.
Land arable driuen or worne to the proofe,
and craveth some rest for thy profits behoof,
With otes ye may sowe it the sooner to grasse
more sooner to pasture to bring it to passe.[101]
The later surveys give additional evidence of the extent to which the
new tenantry had restricted the area of cultivation in the old fields
which had once been entirely arable land. The most noteworthy feature
of the survey of East Brandon, Durham (1606), was, according to Gray,
the appearance in certain fields of meadow along-side the arable.
Lowe field was almost transformed by such procedure, for seldom
did the tenants retain any arable there. Instead they had large
parcels of meadow, sometimes as many as twenty acres; nor does
anything indicate that these parcels were enclosed. They seem,
rather to have remained open and to point to a gradual abandonment
of arable tillage. Such an abandonment is more clearly indicated
by another survey of this series, that of Eggleston.... Presumably
the fields had once been largely arable. When, however, the survey
was made, change had begun, though not in the direction of
enclosure, of which there was still little. Conversion to meadow
had proceeded without it: nearly all the parcels of the various
tenants in East field and West field are said to have been meadow;
arable still predominated only in Middle field, and even there it
had begun to yield.[102]
At Westwick, Whorlton, Bolam and Willington in Durham, and at Welford,
Northamptonshire, a similar transformation had taken place.[103]
This land was obviously withdrawn from cultivation not because the
tenants preferred grass land, or because grass land was more valuable
than arable, but because it could be plowed only at a loss. Where, as
at Greens Norton, arable and leas are valued separately in the survey,
the grass land is shown to be of less value than the land still under
cultivation.[104] The land craved rest, (to use Tusser's phrase), and
the grass which grew on it was of but little value. Here we have no
capitalist systematically buying up land for grazing, but a withdrawal
of land from cultivation by the tenants themselves, even though they
were in no position to prepare it properly for grazing purposes. The
importance of this fact cannot be over-emphasized. It is true that
pasture, properly enclosed and stocked, was profitable, and that men
who were able to carry out this process became notorious among their
contemporaries on account of their gains. But it is also true that the
land which was converted to pasture by these enclosers was fit for
nothing else. Husbandmen had had to withdraw much of their open-field
ground from tillage simply because it was so unproductive that they
could not count on a bare return of seed if they planted it. The
pasturage for an additional horse or cow which these plots furnished
was pure gain, and was not the object of the conversion to grass. The
unproductive strips would have been left untilled even though no
alternative use had been possible. They were unfit for cultivation.
The advantage of holding this lea land did not end, however, with the
fact that a few additional horses or cows could be kept on the grass
which sprang up. This was undoubtedly of some value, but the greatest
advantage lay in the fact that this land gradually recovered its
strength. When the strips which were kept under cultivation finally
produced in their turn so little that they had to be abandoned, the
tenant who had access to land which had been laid to grass years
before could plow this instead, for it had regained its fertility and
had improved in physical quality. Fitzherbert recommends a regular
interchange between "Reyst" ground and arable land which had become
exhausted. When the grass strips become mossy and make poor pasture,
plow them up and plant them; when arable strips fail to produce good
crops, lay them to grass. Lea ground, "the whiche hath ben errable
land of late" should be plowed up.
And if a man haue plentie of suche pasture, that wil be mossie
euery thyrd yere, lette hym breake vp a newe piece of gronde, and
plowe it and sowe it (as I haue seyde before), and he shal haue
plentye of corne, with littell dongynge, and sow it no lengar
thu it will beare plentye of corne, without donge, and it will
beare much better grasse, x or xii yere after.... Reyst grounde
if it be dry, will bringe much corne, for the mosse will rotte,
and the moll hillockes will amende the ground wel.[105]
Tusser's references to the practice of plowing up lea ground and
laying other land to grass are so incidental as to be good evidence of
the fact that this was not merely the recommendation of a theorist,
but a common practice, the details of which were familiar to those for
whom he intended his book. A passage in which he refers to the laying
to grass of land in need of rest has already been quoted.[106] In
discussing the date at which plowing should take place he mentions the
plowing up of lea land as well as of fallow.[107]
The superior value of enclosed pasture to open-field leas, and of
enclosed arable to open-field arable, is not only asserted by
Fitzherbert and others who are urging husbandmen to enclose their
land, but appears also when manorial surveys are examined. It would
seem, therefore, that the tenants would have been anxious to carry the
process to an end and enclose their land. Undoubtedly the larger
holders were desirous of making the change, but as long as the rights
of the lesser men were respected, it was almost impossible to carry it
out. The adjustment of conflicting and obscure claims was generally
held to be an insuperable obstacle, even by those who urged the change
most strongly, while those who on principle opposed anything in the
way of enclosure took comfort in the fact that holdings were so
intermixed that there was little prospect of accomplishing the change:
Wheare (men) are intercominers in comon feildes and also haue
theare portions so intermingled with an other that, thoughe they
would, they could not inclose anie parte of the saide feldes so
long as it is so.[108]
Just as the services of a promoter are needed in the formation of a
modern industrial combination, pressure from above was usually
necessary in order to overcome the difficulties of the situation. The
Lord of Berkeley (1281-1321)
drewe much profitt to his Tenants and increase of fines to
himselfe ... by makeing and procuringe to bee made exchanges of
land mutually one with an other, thereby casting convenient
Parcells togeather, fitting it for an inclosure and conversion.
And by freeinge such inclosures from all comonage of others.[109]
A landlord of this sort would do much to override the opposition of
those who, through conservatism, fear of personal loss, or insistence
upon more than their share of the benefits of the readjustment, made
it impossible for tenants to carry out these changes unassisted.
Where tenants with or without the assistance of the lord had managed
to enclose some of their land and free it from right of common, they
were in a position to devote it to sheep-farming if they chose to do
so. Ordinarily they did not do this. If, as has been claimed, the
large-scale enclosures which shall be considered later were made
because of an increasing demand for wool, it is surprising that these
husbandmen were willing to keep enclosed land under cultivation, and
even to plow up enclosed pasture. The land had to be kept under grass
for a part of the time, whether it was open or enclosed, because if
kept continuously under the plow it became unproductive; and it was
better to have this land enclosed so that it could be used
advantageously as pasture during the period when it was recovering its
strength. But the profits of pasturage were not high enough to prevent
men from plowing up the land when it was again in fit condition.
At Forncett, the tenants had begun sheep-farming by the end of the
fourteenth century, and had also begun to enclose land in the
open-fields; the situation was one, therefore, in which agriculture
was likely to be permanently displaced by grazing, according to the
commonly accepted theory of the enclosure movement. This change failed
to take place; not because enclosures ceased to be made--nearly half
of the acreage of the fields was in enclosures by 1565--but because
the tenants preferred to cultivate this enclosed land.[110] If the
enclosures had been pasture when they were first made, they did not
remain permanently under grass. Like the land still in the open
fields, and like the small enclosures in Cheshire reported by the
commission of 1517, they were sometimes plowed and sometimes laid to
grass, according to the condition of the soil. In a Cheshire village,
two tenants had small enclosures in the same field, which were treated
in this way. At the time the commission visited the place, one of
these closes was being used as pasture, and the other was in
cultivation. John Monkesfield's close, which had been made six years
before,
_continet in se duas acras & diversis temporibus fuit in cultura
& aliis temporibus in pastura & nunc occupata est in
pastura._[111]
John Molynes' close of one acre had been made the year before and
_fuit antea in pastura & nunc occupata est in cultura._
It had evidently been a strip of lea land which had been so improved
by being kept under grass that it was in fit condition for
cultivation, while John Monkesfield's close had been plowed long
enough and was just at this time in need of rest. These men were
apparently unaffected by any increasing demand for wool, but were
managing their land according to its needs.
By the sixteenth century, then, some enclosures had appeared in the
open fields, and the old common-field system was disintegrating. The
old customary holdings had been so altered that they were hardly
recognizable. Some tenants held a great number of acres, and had
managed by purchase or exchange to get possession of a number of
adjacent strips, which they might, under certain conditions, be able
to enclose. Much of the land, however, was withdrawn from cultivation,
and for years was allowed to remain almost in the condition of waste.
For the most part, however, there had been no revolutionary change in
the system of husbandry. The framework remained. The whole community
still possessed claims extending over most of the land. The village
flocks pastured on the stubble and the fallows of the open fields. The
advantages which could in theory be derived from the control of
several adjacent strips of land were reduced to a minimum by the
necessity of maintaining old boundaries to mark off from each other
lands of differing status. Even where the consolidation of holdings
had proceeded to some extent, the tenants who had acquired the most
compact holdings in comparison with the majority still possessed
scattered plots of land separated from each other by the holdings of
other men, and some of the smaller holders had no two strips which
touched each other. When the tenants had been left to themselves, all
of the changes which took place before the eighteenth century,
numerous as they were, usually left the fields in a state resembling
more their condition in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries than that
of the nineteenth century.
FOOTNOTES:
[87] Levett and Ballard, _op. cit._, p. 49, note.
[88] A speech on enclosures commending bills proposed in 1597
contrasts the constructive character of that legislation with the
earlier laws: "Where the gentleman that framed this bill hath dealt
like a most skilful chirugien, not clapping on a plaster to cover the
sore that it spread no further, but searching into the very depths of
the wound that the life and strength which hath so long been in decay
by the wasting of towns and countries may at length again be quickened
and repaired." Bland, Brown & Tawney, _Eng. Econ. History--Select
Documents_, pp. 271-272.
[89] 4 H. 7, c. 16, as quoted by Pollard, _Reign of Henry VII_, p. 237.
[90] Leadam, _Domesday of Inclosures_ (London, 1897), p. 7
[91] 25 H. 8, c. 13.
[92] Gray, _English Field Systems_ (Cambridge, 1915), pp. 95-96.
[93] "Midland Revolt," _R. H. S. Trans._, New Series, vol. xviii, p. 230.
[94] Tawney, _Agrarian Problem_, pp. 164-165.
[95] Levett and Ballard, _op. cit._, pp. 52-53.
[96] _Husbandry_ (ed. English Dialect Society, 1882), p. 77.
[97] 39 El., c. i, vi.
[98] _Surveying_ (2nd ed., 1567), ch. 24.
[99] Corbett, "Elizabethan Village Surveys," _Royal Hist. Soc.
Trans._, New Series, vol. ii, pp. 67-87.
[100] _Surveyinge_, ch. 41.
[101] _Five Hundred Points_ (London, 1812).
[102] Gray, _op. cit._, pp. 106-107.
[103] Gray, _op. cit._, pp. 35, 106-107.
[104] Lennard, _Rural Northamptonshire_, pp. 100-101.
[105] Fitzherbert, _Surveyinge_, chs. 27 and 28.
[106] See p. 79. Another reference to this process is made in
October's _Husbandry_, vol. 22, ch. 17.
[107] Tusser, January's _Husbandry_, vol. 47, ch. 32.
[108] _A Discourse of the Common Weal of this Realm of England_, ed.
by Elizabeth Lamond, Cambridge, 1893.
[109] Smyth, _Lives of the Berkeleys_, vol. ii, pp. 159-160.
[110] Davenport, _Norfolk Manor_, pp. 80-81.
[111] Leadam, _op. cit._, pp. 641-644.