^{page 231 note 1} Cunningham, , Growth of English Industry and Commerce, i. 361Google Scholar; Ashley, , English Economic History, 1. ii. 273Google Scholar; Page, T. W., Die Umwandlung der Frohndienste in Geldrenten, p. 36Google Scholar.

^{page 232 note 1} 4 Hen. VII. c. 16.

^{page 232 note 2} Ibid. c. 19.

^{page 232 note 3} SirElyot, Thomas, The Governour, 1531 (ed. Crofts, , 1880), ii. 86, 87, 416, 417Google Scholar.

^{page 233 note 1} Dudley, Edmonde, The Tree of Commonwealth, ca. 1509 (Manchester, 1859), p.3Google Scholar.

^{page 233 note 2} Ibid. p. 62.

^{page 234 note 1} Brewer, , L. & P. H. VIII. i. 5727, 1 & 2Google Scholar. Of the two drafts the first is for an Act, the second for a proclamation.

^{page 234 note 2} Leadam, , Domesday of Inclosures, i. 7Google Scholar (to be referred to here as D. In.)

^{page 234 note 3} 6 Hen. VIII. c. 5.

^{page 234 note 7} Hen. VIII. c. 1.

^{page 235 note 1} Pat. Roll, 9 Hen. VIII. p. 2, m. 6 d.

^{page 235 note 2} MrLeadam, (D. In. p. 2Google Scholar) seems to discern the trail of finance over Wolsey's proceedings. He states that by securing writs of super sedeas inclosure offenders ‘for the most part … relieved themselves from their obligations,’ and conjectures that they thus redeemed ‘their liability to an annual fine by the payment of a composition in ready money.’ No evidence of such payments is adduced, and I know of none except Polydore Virgil (ed. Basle, 1555), pp. 664–5, who is followed by Herbert, (in Kennett, ii. 40)Google Scholar: ‘yet (as Polydore hath it) divers, by compounding secretly with the Cardinal, exempted themselves.’ But Polydore Virgil is notoriously prejudiced against Wolsey, and his testimony on this point is not conclusive. A search through several classes of Exchequer records of the period has hitherto failed to afford me any confirmation of the conjecture as to compositions. Certainly the writs of supersedeas on their face do not suggest collusive action. Of some 101 of these writs which I have counted in the Exch. Q.R. Mem. Rolls 39 are in temporary stay of proceedings in the Exchequer while the cases are pending in Chancery; in 25 the writ is granted on condition of compliance with the law in a specified time; in another 25 the defendants show on oath or by evidence that they had already obeyed the law. Only two highly placed offenders ‘relieved themselves from their obligations’ by showing cause why they could not conform to the requirements of the statute.

^{page 235 note 3} Thomas More, from 1514 on, was rising high in estimation with Wolsey and with Henry VIII., but it was before the appearance of Utopia, in 1516, that Wolsey, as we have seen reason to suppose, was already preparing for action.

^{page 236 note 1} Brewer, , L. & P. Hen. VIII. iv. ii. 4649Google Scholar.

^{page 236 note 2} See the ‘brief remembrance’ of 1529 (Brewer, , L. & P. Hen. VIII. IV. iii. 5750Google Scholar), where, among other charges, Wolsey is attacked for executing ‘the statute of enclosing.’

^{page 236 note 3} A study of the Hanaper Accounts, taken with some other contemporary documents, would break down the charge against ‘Strype and all subsequent writers’ of confounding the anti-inclosure John Hales of Coventry with another John Hales, Clerk of the Hanaper (D. In. p. 5, n. 1). As a matter of fact Mr. Leadam's two John Hales were one and the same person. While John Hales of Coventry was absent in Germany in the later years of Edward VI., and again as a refugee under Mary, his duties as Clerk of the Hanaper were performed by Thomas Cotton, his deputy.

^{page 237 note 1} Schanz, , Englische Handelspolitik, ii. 671Google Scholar. Poulson, in his History of Holderness, had used the Lansdowne abstract for Yorkshire.

^{page 237 note 2} Ashley, , ‘The Character of Villein Tenures,’ in Annals of the Am. Acad. 12 1891, p. 11Google Scholar, n. 14.

^{page 237 note 3} Trans. R.H.S. 1892–4.

^{page 238 note 1} The Chancery returns for Warwickshire in 1517, 1518, and the meagre results of the ineffective commission of 1549 for the same county, had been used by Dugdale in connection with data from Rous to describe the depopulation of some of the Warwickshire hamlets (cf. Dugdale, , Antiquities of Warwickshire, 1656Google Scholar). Dugdale's own transcripts, now at Oxford, are printed by Mr. Leadam.

^{page 238 note 2} In the following list of counties for which the returns made under the Inclosure Commission of 1517 are extant I have designated the eleven Chancery returns edited by Mr. Leadam in the Domesday of Inclosures by the letter D, the twelve in the Public Record Office, as yet unedited, by R, and the ten abstracts in the Lansdowne MS. by L.

The Exchequer proceedings referred to below (p. 239) supply information as to other inquisitions taken in 1518 for Buckinghamshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Oxfordshire, and in 1519 for Nottinghamshire.

^{page 240 note 1} The 607 entries on the Exch. L.T.R. Mem. Rolls do not represent an equal number of cases, since in these protracted proceedings the same case is often entered twice or even thrice, each entry carrying it a stage further towards its final dismissal. I have searched these rolls through from 1517 to 1615, but without finding any entries after 1599.

^{page 240 note 2} In the Husbandry Acts of 1555 (2 & 3 Ph. & M. c. 2) and 1563 (5 Eliz. c. 2) the legislature is already struggling with one of the protean forms of the still unsettled legal question, ‘What is a house?’ ‘Dyvers doubts and questions’ had arisen under the Act of 1490 concerning the 20 acres of land necessary to a house of husbandry. The need of precision is felt again in 1598, for the Tillage Act of that year (39 Eliz. c. 1) attempts to define such a house.

^{page 240 note 3} Coke, 3rd Inst. c. 97, p. 204 (ed. 1644).

^{page 241 note 1} D. In. p. 37.

^{page 241 note 2} The percentages of inclosures for arable husbandry, as given in Mr. Leadam's statistical introductions, are as follows: Warwickshire, 11.03; Leicestershire, 11.1; Northamptonshire, 13.5; Buckinghamshire, 18.4; Oxfordshire, 25.9; Bedfordshire, 31.3; Lincolnshire, 40.6; Berkshire, 61.04. ‘In the Hundred of Compton (Mid-Berks), in which the largest area of inclosed land is returned, 70 per cent., and in the adjoining Hundred of Moreton 96 per cent., was inclosure of arable. In the Hundred of Hornier … all the inclosures were of arable’ (D. In. p. 92).

^{page 242 note 3} D. In. p. 8. But it appears that Mr. Leadam would not have us lay much stress on this apparently important generalisation as to the sequence of events, for he elsewhere remarks (D. In p. 36) ‘ that the inclosure of arable was a movement contemporary with that of conversion to pasture,’ while his own statistics do not bear out his assertion as quoted in the text.

The table of the total progress of inclosures in the five principal counties (D. In. p. 41), with the addition of the percentages of the total inclosed area formed by the arable and pasture inclosures, shows that instead of an earlier movement towards arable inclosure, followed by a ‘subsequent’ and increasing movement of pasture inclosure, the order was reversed—if Mr. Leadam's figures are to be trusted. The data as to engrossings of farms are too scanty and conjectural to employ.

^{page 242 note 1} Nasse, preceding Mr. Leadam, asserted in 1869 that the agricultural movement was not in the main to pasture farming; he, however, describes it as a change to a convertible husbandry (Nasse, E., Feldgemeinschaft, p. 61Google Scholar). The evidence adduced for this is inadequate, and Nasse's statement has been already questioned (Busch, , England unter den Tudors, i. p. 390Google Scholar). Nasse's argument rests on the fact of the low corn prices for the period and the testimony of Fitzherbert and Tusser. So far as the former fact is valid it only shows that the exaggerated complaints of contemporaries have been misleading as to the extent of the inclosures; that, in fact, the corn-growing area was not very seriously affected. Fitzherbert and Tusser can scarcely be called to witness against the change to pasture-farming; cf. below, p. 243.

^{page 243 note 1} [Hales, John] Discourse of the Common Weal, ed. Lamond, , 1893, p. 15Google Scholar.

^{page 243 note 2} Ibid. p. 50.

^{page 243 note 3} Fitzherbert, , Surveyinge, cc. 40, 41Google Scholar.

^{page 243 note 4} Tusser, , Five Hundred Points, 1580 (ed. 1878), § 63Google Scholar. Tusser, like Fitzherbert, is not advocating farm engrossing and knows nothing of an arable husbandry which diminishes the employment of the agricultural population; Cf. infra, p. 247, n. 1.

^{page 244 note 1} Among the broadsides in the possession of the Society of Antiquaries is one (no. 15) dated by Lemon as of the time of Henry VIII. It is entitled Questions worthy to be consulted on for the Weale Publyque, and one of the queries is ‘whether every encloser compelled to have in tillage the thirde Acre so enclosed were more profytable for the commonwealth then to pull downe encloses.’ To this advocate of inclosure for tillage the inclosures of the period evidently meant conversions of arable to pasture.

^{page 244 note 2} 4 Hen. VII. c. 16.

^{page 244 note 3} Ibid. c. 19.

^{page 244 note 4} 6 Hen. VIII. c. 5; 7 Hen. VIII. c. 1.

^{page 245 note 1} D. In. p. 8.

^{page 245 note 2} The drafts assigned by Brewer to 1514 bring out clearly the close connection recognised by contemporaries between farm engrossing and sheepfarming. The draft Act (S. P. Hen. VIII. vol. ix. p. 262) inveighs against the gentlemen and ‘manye merchaunts adventurers, Clothmakers, Goldsmythes, Bochers, Tannars, and other artificers and vnreasonable Covitous persons whiche doth encroche daily many fermes more than they can be able to occupye or maynteign with Tilth for come as hath been vsed in tymes past,’ and goes on to say that by such engrossings of farms ploughs and farmhouses are decayed, ‘and no more parisshons in many parisshes, but a nettard and a sheppard.’

The draft proclamation (ibid. pp. 264–5) set s forth that scarcity of grain comes ‘not only by convertyng arable grounde vnto pasture, but allso by engrossyng of many fermes and tenements of husbondry ynto the handes and possession of a fewe couaytouse persones which for their owne particuler lucre neglectith tillage and only applyinge the lande bilongyng to the said fermes vnto pasturage and fedyng of catell suffrith the houses of the said fermes and tenements to decaye,’ &c.

^{page 245 note 3} 27 Hen. VIII. c. 22,

^{page 246 note 1} The Acte concerning Fermcs and Shape (25 Hen. VIII. c. 13), for example, makes complaint of the accumulation into few hands of ‘great multitude of fermes … puttyng such londs as they can gett into pasture and not to tyllage.’

^{page 246 note 2} D. In. p. 36.

^{page 247 note 1} In his Book of Husbandry, which preceded the Surveying, Fitzherbert, in advocating inclosure, had urged its advantage in saving to the husbandman the meat, drink, and wages of the shepherd, and the hire of the common herdman and swineherd. When he repeated the argument in the Surveying Fitzherbert met an objection which apparently had been made by adding a passage, the most important part of which is omitted by MrLeadam, (cf. D. In. p. 36)Google Scholar. ‘Peradventure some men would say that this shuld be against the common weale, bicause the shepe herdes, heerdmen, and swyneherdes shoulde than be put out of wages.’ So far Mr. Leadam quotes; by some inadvertence he failed to note that the point of his citation is broken by Fitzherbert's next sentence: ‘To that it may be answered, though those occupations be not used, there be as many newe occupations that were not used before. As gettyng of quycksettes, diching, hedging, and plashing, the which the same men may use and occupye’ (Surveying (ed. 1539), fol. 59 d).

Tusser in his ‘Comparison betweene Champion Countrie and Severall’ (Five Hundred Points, § 63) vaunts that country ‘where [arable] enclosure is most,’ as giving ‘more workefor the labouring man, as well in the towne as the feeld.’

^{page 247 note 2} D. In. p. 37.

^{page 247 note 3} Printed ibid. p. 81.

^{page 248 note 1} One of the schedules is attached to the returns from Hampshire, P.R.O. Misc. Rolls, Chancery, . The articles of inquiry deal in the first place (Art. 1–6, cf. infra, p. 250, n. 1) with the decays of towns, meses, and ploughs resulting from inclosure to pasture. Articles 7–11 are for inquiry into imparcations. Article 12 runs, ‘Item, what fermes of erable londe and pasture be taken by Gentilmen within the said Shire. And by reason therof how many plowes be dekayed and laid downe. And what howses and inhabitaccons be desolate by reason of the same. And what people be nowe lesse ther inhabyte then were afore the seid ferme takyng.’

^{page 248 note 2} E.g. D. In. p. 402, n. 1, ‘The putting down of a plough implies conversion to pasture.’

^{page 248 note 3} Exch. L.T.R. Mem. Rolls, 20Hen. VIII., Easter term, ro. 7, gives a case of the decay of a mese where its 30 acres of land are leased with another mese for arable husbandry and a plough is put down.

Among the recently found returns for Lincolnshire is an entry from Claxby of ‘on fayer plow decayed and fallen down … and the land belonginge unto the said house is as yet in tillage.’ In this, as in others of these Lincolnshire entries, plough is synonymous with house.

These instances are very exceptional.

^{page 248 note 4} D. In. p. 35.

^{page 249 note 1} D. In. pp. 35, 37, 245.

^{page 249 note 2} Ibid. p. 248.

^{page 249 note 3} The ‘hedges, Dikes, or other Inclousours’ obviously corresponds to the ‘cum sepibus et fossatis aliisque clausuris’ of the commission (D. In. p. 81), and are simply terms signifying different means of inclosure. Mr. Leadam erroneously co-ordinates ‘other Inclousours’ with ‘Dekeys’ and ‘parkes,’ and thus finds in them inclosures for pasture. See D. In. p. 37, 'inclosures for pasture being relegated to the head of “other Inclousours.”

^{page 250 note 1} See D. In. pp. 81, 82 for the commission. The first four of the articles of inquiry bear on this point.

'Firste ye shall enquire what Townes, villages, and hamylettes have ben dekayed and leide downe by inclosures in to pastures within the schires conteyned in your comission sith the iiij^th yere of the reigne of Kyng Henry the VIIth.

'Item, what londe was thenne in tillage at the tyme of the seid inclosure and what was then in pasture.

'Item, how many plowes by reason of the same inclosure be Ieyd downe.

‘Item, how many meses, cotages, and dwellyng houses be fall in dekay and then habitauntis of the same be departed from ther inhabitacion ther by reason of the same inclosures’ (Misc. Rolls, Chancery, ). The ‘same inclosures’ are, of course, the ‘inclosures in to pastures’ of the first article.

^{page 250 note 2} The commissioners following the articles of inquiry made return of a certain number of imparcations and engrossings of farms (e.g. in Oxon., D. In. pp. 362, 375, 381, 382Google Scholar), but so far as can be discovered these presentments were followed by no prosecutions. There are likewise entries of conversions to pasture pure and simple, made apparently under the clause of the commission: ‘Et quot et quante terre que tune in cultura erant et iam in pasturam conuertuntur.’ Whatever may have been the fact in such cases no mention is made of any resulting decay; and therefore when proceedings were undertaken demurrer was made that there was no case under the Act (Chancery Common Law Proc. Hen. VIII., case of Abbot of Peterborough for conversion of 34 acres to pasture at Walton, Northants). The demurrer must have been held to be well taken, for in the long series of later Exchequer proceedings there appear no prosecutions on presentments of conversion alone. They were sedulously avoided as being insufficient in law. But the commissioners had in the first instance cast their net wide, even, in some cases, going beyond their commission (cf. D. In. p. 291).

^{page 251 note 1} Ibid. p. 241, n. 4, and see also MrLeadam's, words in R.H.S. Trans., 1892, p. 176Google Scholar: ‘No form of return, with schedules specially arranged, after the modern fashion, was issued to the juries. Hence a considerable variation, not only in different counties, but in the several parts of the same county, in the expressions used, and in the amount of information rendered.’

^{page 251 note 2} See, for instance, large inclosures, such as those inD. In. pp. 162–3, 429–30, et al. Mr. Leadam writes under Leicestershire (Ibid. p. 241, n. 4) ‘that all the larger areas are cases of conversion.’ If the Northamptonshire entries be tabulated according to Mr. Leadam's principles the inclosures for arable average 36.1 acres, while those for pasture contain each on the average 95.2 acres.

^{page 252 note 1} Though drawing such grave conclusions from the one omission in the returns, Mr. Leadam passes over this other more considerable omission of the inclosure clause without mention. And yet his maxim, ‘expressio unius est exclusio alterius’ (D. In. p. 21), might find here as valid application as he has made of it. Some, disregarding the obvious implications of the presentments, might tabulate all such entries as of decay only without inclosure or change of the old open-field system. They might adduce in support of their view such a case as that of John Goodwin at Woburn (Bucks), who is presented for the decay of a mese with 40 acres. Mr. Leadam enters this as an arable inclosure (D. In. pp. 185, 572), but John Goodwin explained in Chancery that the land was not inclosed, but ‘kept in tillage, according to the custome of Chilturn Cuntrey,’ while the house had been tenantless seven years ‘because in wynter it is every flood a yard deep withyn the house of water’ (Chanc. C. L. Proc. ). Mr. Leadam would be right in calling this an exceptional case, but his general argument for inclosure would tell also in favour of conversion to pasture.

^{page 253 note 1} D. In. pp. 105, 502.

^{page 253 note 2} Exch. L. T. R. Mem Roll, 18 Hen. VIII., Hilary Term, ro. 7.

^{page 253 note 3} D. In. p. 117; Exch. L. T. R. Mem. Roll, 15 Hen. VIII., Mich. ro. 70.

^{page 253 note 4} D. In. pp. 143, 508; Exch. L. T. R. Mem. Roll, 15 Hen. VIII., Mich. ro. 63.

^{page 255 note 1} For Berkshire see the following instances, taken from the Close Roll of 12 Hen. VIII. (no. 388): Spicer, Thomas in Stephyngton to put in tillage 40 acres before the following Christmas (entered as inclosure for arable husbandry in D. In. p. 506Google Scholar); the prior of Wallingford, 40 acres in Sotwell (ibid. p. 508); the abbot of Reading, 20 acres at Pangbourn and 30 acres at Tyleherst (ibid. p. 508).

^{page 255 note 2} ibid. p. 16.

^{page 255 note 3} Ibid. pp. 37, 131.

^{page 256 note 1} Exch. L. T. R. Mem. Roll, 32 Hen. VIII., Trinity, ro. 58.

^{page 256 note 2} The case was dismissed in 1571 (Exch. L. T. R. Mem. Roll, 13 Eliz., Easter, ro. 22).

^{page 256 note 3} There are a few instances in the Inquisitions of an inclosure or an engrossing where the land is kept in arable cultivation, and it is apparent that this seemed to the commissioners worth especial note. The number of unquestionable entries of this character is, however, so small as to be negligible. In Essex, at Moche Wygborow, 100 acres of ground, pasture and wood, were enclosed, ‘and viii acars thereof of yerabyll lond … and the tillage of this load left’ (D. In. p. 220). In ‘le houbrig feldes’ of Chester little plots of land are interchangeably arable and pasture; a close of one acre at the time of the Inquisition was in arable (D. In. p. 642). In the two Norfolk cases (Parva Parlond, 12 acres, and Shotesham, 60 acres), where the inclosed land is kept ‘in cultura,’ the reason for the exceptional entry is carefully added: ‘racione dicte inclausure dicta villa omisit le shakke que solebat habere’ (R. H. S. vii. 200, 202). A few loosely drawn presentments in the Essex and Lincolnshire returns are of doubtful interpretation. These, it is needless to add, were worthless for the purposes of the commission and could sustain no later proceedings. There are three entries in Warwickshire of decay and engrossing where the land is expressly noted as kept in cultivation (Dorsett, 22½ acres, D. In. p. 408, and Grafton, 30 and 60 acres, ibid. p. 405). The Exch. L. T. R. Mem. Rolls show proceedings on the last case only. Here the offender was dismissed on showing that the house had been rebuilt (33 Hen. VIII., Mich., ro. 24). See also the cases referred to above, p. 18, n. 3.

‘There is a class of cases in which an entire area is returned, or some indication of its extent given, but only a specified portion of it definitely mentioned as having been inclosed’ or converted to pasture (D. In. p. 21). The residue, about which the return says nothing, Mr. Leadam has, as a rule, ‘entered as inclosed arable’ (ibid.), a very questionable proceeding. One of Mr. Leadam's examples is the above case at Moche Wygborow, where certainly there can be no justification for entering the residue of 92 acres as inclosed arable; and in the other instances the undescribed residue of the incloser's holding might have been uninclosed arable land in the common fields, or it might have been pasture land. For examples of pasture forming a part of the inclosed holding see among others Dytton, , Bucks, (D. In. p. 183Google Scholar), Ashby da la Zouch, Leic. (ibid. p. 233), and Chilworth and Combe, Oxon. (ibid. p. 342).

^{page 258 note 1} D. In. p. 262.

^{page 258 note 2} Ibid. p. 39.

^{page 258 note 3} Ibid. p. 41.

^{page 259 note 1} D. In. p. 41.

^{page 259 note 2} Ibid. p. 93.

^{page 259 note 3} Cf. ibid. pp. 93, 153, 262, 322, 391.

^{page 259 note 4} Ibid. p. 391.

^{page 260 note 1} Rogers, , A. and P. ii. 308Google Scholar.

^{page 260 note 2} Ibid. ii. 337.

^{page 260 note 3} Ibid. i. 367.

^{page 260 note 4} This lack of any standard weight led to such precautions as those taken by Sir William Plumpton's servant when shipping wool to London in 1469. He wrote to inform his master ‘that I have a counterpais wheith of the wheight stone that the wooll was weyed with, and that ye se that the stone be kept that the shipman brings’ (Plumfton Corresp. p. 21).

^{page 261 note 1} This is Rogers's constant practice, but it is perplexing to be told concerning the wool prices of this period that at most places the petra ‘seems to be identical with the clove’ (A, and P. iv. 309), and the clove is 7 pounds (ibid. ii. 337).

_{page 262 note 1} Decennial Averages of the Prices of Wool, 1481–1520.

^{page 263 note 1} D. In. p. 93.

^{page 263 note 2} ibid. p. 393.

^{page 264 note 1} Tanner's, Notitia Monastica (ed. Nasmith, , 1787Google Scholar) names 38 religious foundations as certainly in existence in Warwickshire at this period.

^{page 264 note 2} D. In. p. 392.

^{page 264 note 3} Ibid. p. 94.

^{page 264 note 4} Ibid. p. 96.

^{page 265 note 1} D. In. p. 65.

^{page 265 note 2} Ibid. p. 62.

^{page 265 note 3} Ibid. p. 325.

^{page 265 note 4} Ibid. p. 324.

^{page 265 note 5} Ibid. p. 323.

^{page 265 note 6} Ibid. p. 326.

^{page 265 note 7} For other ‘remarkable results’ in the rental statistics follow through D. In. pp. 64–71, 96, 156, 224, 265, 326, 393,457. See, for instance, on p. 69, the table which ‘yields the most remarkable result that the pasture of the county, which in 1450 produced the most highly valued wool, is of the lowest rental value, while its companion in the quality of wool, Oxfordshire, appears a poor fourth on the list.’ A recognition of the thoroughly untrustworthy character of his statistical basis would have relieved Mr. Leadam from much ingenious but misdirected speculation.

^{page 265 note 8} D. In. pp. 42–3.

^{page 267 note 1} Cf. D. In. p. 16, ‘the diligent accuracy with which the Returns were made.’

^{page 267 note 1} This is Mr. Gay's designation. The marginal note to the commission runs, ‘De inquirendo de villis et hamelettis prosternatis et inclusis et parcis elargatis.’ D. In. p.81.

^{page 269 note 1} ‘Neyther maist thou enclose thy ground

That thou mayst make it yerely more,

For knowledge will teach the to seke

Other mens wealth more than thine owne,

And rather to fede on a leke

Then one house should be overthrowen.’

‘The Gentleman's Lesson’ in Crowley's, Robert Last Trumpet, Early Eng. Text Soc., Ex. Ser. iv. 92Google Scholar.

^{page 269 note 2} ‘Surveyors there be that greedily gorge up their covetous goods. … Honest men I touch not; but all such as survey, they make up their mouths, but the commons be utterly undone by them.’—Latimer's first sermon before Edward VI. March 8, 1549, Parker Soc. p. 102.

‘A manne that had landes

Of tenne poundes by yere,

Surveyed the same

And lette it out deare,’ &c.

Crowley, R., Of Rente Raysers, E. E. T. S., Ex. Ser. iv. 46Google Scholar.

^{page 269 note 3} ‘W. S. A Discourse of the Common Weal ofthis Realm of England’ (ed. by Lamond, E.), p. 60Google Scholar: ‘The more doe occupie husbandrie, the more plenty of come must nedes be;’ p. 89: ‘That should make husbandrie to be more occupied and grasenge less vsed.’

^{page 270 note 1} p. 100.

^{page 270 note 2} I have cited the Acts of 1490 (4 Hen. VII. c. 16 and c. 19) in my Domesday of Inclosures as of 1489 because they appear in the Statutes of the Realm as 4 Hen. VII., i.e. 1488–89. Mr. Gay adopts the date 1490, which a note on p. 524 shows to have been the real date of their enactment. But Wolsey treated them, as I did, as belonging to 4, not to 5, Hen. VII.

^{page 270 note 3} 7 Hen. VIII. c. 1.

^{page 271 note 1} Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry (ed. by Mavor, W., 1812), p. 36Google Scholar.

^{page 271 note 2} Ibid. p. 205.

^{page 271 note 3} Domesday of Inclosures, p. 57. Cf. MrGay, , p. 250, n. 2, supraGoogle Scholar.

^{page 271 note 4} Ibid. p. 477.

^{page 271 note 5} W. S. p. 50; cf. the above-quoted passage from p. 100.

^{page 272 note 1} P. 248, n. 3.

^{page 272 note 2} I was aware in scheduling the statistics that the inference from the presentment of the decay of a plough, unaccompanied by further information that an inclosure to pasture was intended, is ‘not entirely unexceptionable.’ But my principle is justified by the fact that the laying down of ploughs is an article of inquiry complementary to the inquiry into inclosures to pasture.

^{page 272 note 3} I am aware that the Dialogue was probably written some thirty years later than the commission of 1517, but it is common ground that Wolsey was the most strenuous combatant of inclosure.

^{page 272 note 4} D. In. p. 57.

^{page 274 note 1} Mr. Gay speaks of the MS. as an ‘early document.’ In this he is mistaken, for it refers to Henry VIII. as ‘nuper regis.’ See D. of In. p. 98. My belief is that it belongs to the Hales Inquisition.

^{page 274 note 2} The words of the record (Exch. L. T. R. Mem. Roll 32 H. VIII. Trin. lviii.) are: ‘Et quia predictum vnum mesuagium in Bray predicto in comitatu predicto ad dictum festum sancti Michaelis Archangeli quod erat in dicto anno MDxxxviij non reparatur neque reedificabatur nee adhuc reedificatur sed in decasu & ruina ad idem festum sancti Michaelis remanebat & existebat & adhuc remanet & existit & predicte sexaginta acre terre adtunc a cultura & vsu Iconomie in pasturam convertebantur & vse fuerunt & sic adhuc remanent & occupantur.‘ The language is ambiguous, but the case certainly does not help Mr. Gay's main contention.

^{page 274 note 3} The cases in the L. T. R. rolls show that evidence was taken by the Crown at the time of the later proceedings.

^{page 275 note 1} p. 100.

^{page 275 note 2} D. In. p. 260.

^{page 277 note 1} Nasse, , On the Agricultural Community of the Middle Ages (Engl. Trans. 1871), p. 84Google Scholar.

^{page 277 note 2} Hist. of Agriculture and Prices, iv. 288, 292.

^{page 277 note 3} Mr. Gay in a note speaks of Nasse as ‘preceding Mr. Leadam in this assertion.’ It is not an assertion made by me except in the isolated case of Berkshire. I said of Berkshire that the proportion of inclosure of arable to inclosure of pasture was evidence ‘that the agricultural revolution was not simply a movement of inclosure to pasture,’ D. of In. p. 92.

^{page 278 note 1} Busch, W., England unter den Tudors (1892), i. 390Google Scholar.

^{page 278 note 2} Quarterly Journal of Economics, xi. 2, 208 (Jan. 1897).

^{page 278 note 3} Trans. R. Hist. Soc. (1893), N.S. vii. 270–276. I am glad to learn from Mr. Gay's paper that the original Chancery Returns have lately been discovered in the Record Office.

^{page 278 note 4} Surveyenge (ed. 1767 in Certain Ancient Tracts), p. 19.

^{page 279 note 1} I deal with the exceptional rents for some arable in Berks and Beds presently.

^{page 280 note 1} D. In. p. 92.

^{page 280 note 2} Including inclosures for parks.

^{page 280 note 3} Slightly W. of the middle of the county.

^{page 280 note 4} N.E. of the Hundred of Compton.

^{page 280 note 5} N.N.W. of the county,

^{page 281 note 1} They amounted, however, to only three inclosures of a total area of 184 acres.

^{page 281 note 2} S. and S.E. of the Hundred of Hormer.

^{page 281 note 3} S.W. corner of the county.

^{page 281 note 4} ‘The character of the soil in the Eastern Division is considered poorer than in the West.’—Encycl. Brit. (ed. 1875), sub Berkshire. A large part was and is forest land.

^{page 281 note 5} Professor of Modern History in the University of Oxford 1801–13.

^{page 281 note 6} Lysons, , Magna Britannia (1806), i. 190Google Scholar.

^{page 282 note 1} Through the Hundreds of Hormer, Ock, and Wantage.

^{page 282 note 2} Through the Hundreds of Wantage and Lambourn.

^{page 282 note 3} Through the Hundred of Lambourn.

^{page 284 note 1} It is to its uninclosed Downs that Berkshire owes its numerous sheep.

^{page 285 note 1} I state in the Domesday of Inclosures (p. 64) that ‘the figures for Beds are insufficient to form a judgment.’ I do not go further, then, than to note the following curious coincidences. The table of average rental values on p. 67 shows that pasture fanning was in that county less profitable than arable farming by 20.7 per cent. Berks furnishes the only other exception to the rule, the difference there being 13.8 per cent. In the proportion per cent, to total inclosures of those returned as arable, Beds with 31.3 per cent. follows the 61.04 Per cent. of Berks. Now if we turn to the statistics of 1866, we find Beds ranking fifth, after Cambridge, Suffolk, Essex, and Huntingdon, from which counties we have no available sixteenth-century data, in the proportion of arable crops. The area of Beds under corn crops is 113,123 acres as compared with 67,874 acres of permanent pasture, meadow, or grass not broken up in rotation, exclusive of hill pastures, i.e. 62 per cent. This is pro tanto confirmatory of my reading of the Beds as of the Berks returns.

^{page 285 note 1} I will forestall the criticism that the returns for Leicestershire should show a higher percentage of pasture inclosed if it was to be proportional to the profits. I have pointed out in the introduction to Leicestershire (p. 222), that all the inclosures of arable were in one Hundred, and that the returns are incomplete. This fact points to the probability that the complete returns would show some higher percentage.

^{page 287 note 1} In his ‘introductions’ to the five principal counties Mr. Leadam gives no warning whatever as to the figures for Oxfordshire and Warwickshire. For Buckinghamshire the sole suggestion of ‘paucity of data’ is that ‘the high average rental value of ecclesiastical pasture land let (Is. 1¾d. an acre) must not be insisted on, because it is controlled by one case of letting at 2s. an acre’ (D. In. p. 156). For Berkshire a warning is given as to one detail in the table of progress of inclosures, where Mr. Leadam describes as ‘apt to be misleading’ percentages of increase of 450 on lay land and 837.5 (!) on ecclesiastical land. The actual figures are for lay land a rise in the second decade from 40 to 220 acres, and for ecclesiastical land from nothing to 155 acres (ibid. pp. 93, 521). This appears even to Mr. Leadam sufficiently ‘scanty,’ but when in his general table (ibid. p. 41) he discovers for the same period a rise in arable inclosure of 437.77 Per cent., ‘so enormous a rate of progress’ excites in him no suspicion of similar inadequacy of data, but is made to explain a fall in the wheat price (ibid. p. 39). For Northamptonshire, Mr. Leadam twice calls attention to the same detail, the small areas found ‘inclosed to arable’ in the table of the progress of inclosures (ibid. p. 262). Under the circumstances, therefore, after testing Mr. Leadam through pages fairly bristling with ‘large or positive’ inferences, based on insufficient or misinterpreted data, my comment that in Northamptonshire Mr. Leadam ‘begins to suspect that his materials may be inadequate,’ is, I consider, both justifiable and moderate.

^{page 288 note 1} In connection with his summary treatment of this second part of the general criticism, Mr. Leadam has misinterpreted a remark of mine as to the desirability of investigating the value, accuracy, and completeness of the Inquisitions (above, pp. 266–7, and Mr. Leadam's comment, p. 276). This had reference, however, as is indicated a few lines lower, to the possibility of forming some approximate idea as to how far the presentments gave ‘a complete measure of the extent’ of the inclosing movement in the counties for which the returns were already known. Mr. Leadam has taken the expression, I regret to see, as an imputation on the industry and enterprise shown in his work. These are not, however, the qualities which I impeach.

^{page 288 note 2} I describe this Lekehamstede case and the seventy-seven similar entries in the Berkshire Inquisition as presenting the decay of a mese only. In so doing I take no account of the fact of eviction, since this was no offence under the statute of 1490. It was simply one of the accompaniments of the only offence punishable under that Act—namely, the decay of a house of husbandry having at least 20 acres. Legally speaking, the mention of evictions was superfluous, and was so treated in the Exchequer proceedings.

Mention of the decay of ploughs was likewise superfluous. Such mention of decayed ploughs is found not only in conjunction with the conversion clause, as in the Yatyndon case here transcribed, but also with entries of the decay of a house alone.

^{page 289 note 1} D. In. p. 109.

^{page 289 note 2} D. In. p. 175.

^{page 290 note 1} ‘Also thei say that the wardon of Tateshall haith enclosed by estimacion xiiij acres ground arrable in Mynyngesby forsaid, and so haith vsed the same sith the xvii^th yere of king henry the vii^th’ (D. In. p. 260).

^{page 290 note 2} Or the scattered strips of land might be, and at a later period often were, consolidated, severalled and kept in arable cultivation without inclosure. The fact is mentioned both by Pearce and Mavor (General View of the Agriculture of Berkshire, 1794 and 1808). See, for instance, ‘the advantage resulting from inclosing, or at least severalling, common fields is so very obvious,’ &c. (ed. 1794, p. 49).

^{page 291 note 1} See above, p. 250, n. I, the fourth article of inquiry.

^{page 291 note 2} He evades the argument by representing it as applying ‘where conversion, but not inclosure, is presented’ (above, p. 275). It applies, however, where decay of a mese unaccompanied by mention either of conversion or inclosure is presented.

^{page 291 note 3} Hence the title ‘Inquisitions of Depopulation,’ which I prefer as at once more comprehensive and more manageable than the title which should in strictness be given—i.e. ‘Inquisitions of Decays of Houses of Husbandry (and of Imparcations).’ The Commission of 1517 sums up the evils of the movement as resulting ‘in maximam desolacionem et dispendium regni nostri subditorumque nostrorum diminucionem’ (D. In. p. 82).

^{page 291 note 4} MrLeadam, gives (D. In. pp. 44–47Google Scholar) a table showing for six counties ‘the average evictions and displacements from labour on inclosed arable and pasture land.’ Summing up the total of the county averages for all classes of inclosures, and taking an average similar to that employed in the table, it is found that the ‘total average area of inclosed arable per person evicted and displaced’ (column 4) is 8.12 acres, while the corresponding average for inclosed pasture is 11.06 acres. In other words, for every hundred acres of so-called arable inclosure 12 persons are evicted and displaced, but only 9 persons for every hundred acres of pasture inclosure. If Mr. Leadam's tabulation and results had any validity whatever, this would indicate that so far as the inclosures for arable went their social effect was considerably more deplorable than that of inclosure for pasture farming; but this is simply one of the absurd consequences of an erroneous interpretation.

^{page 292 note 1} The reference for the final proceedings on the Lekehamstede case is Exch. L.T.R. Mem. Rolls 18 Eliz. H. T. ro. 57. The defendant there pleads that the mese was sufficiently rebuilt for use in husbandry (iconomia) and leased with thirty acres of arable land before Feb. 1 of 7 Edw. VI., and is therefore protected by the Act of General Pardon of that year. I take this as confirming the inference that the conversion to pasture of the land accompanied the decay of the mese and was tacitly implied in the presentment. From his comment on the case of John Lee of Wynkefeld (see above, pp. 272–3) I gather that Mr. Leadam would admit that the expression implied a reconversion of the land to arable. As a matter of fact, the phrase ‘sufficiently rebuilt for use in husbandry’ (iconomia) occurs in practically all the Exchequer (L.T.R.) proceedings taken upon the presentments of 1517, but I preferred in my paper to take my illustrations from the cases where the mention of reconversion was explicit and unmistakeable and not a matter of inference. Mr. Leadam's acceptance of the ‘iconomia’ clause as implying in the legal proceedings reconversion to arable supports the case as against his interpretation.

^{page 293 note 1} It is to this constant insistence in his tabulations and inferences on the theory of arable inclosure that I had reference when I coupled MrLeadam's, name with that of Nasse in the somewhat compressed note (p. 242, n. IGoogle Scholar) to which Mr. Leadam takes exception. From his percentages of inclosures for arable husbandry, quoted by me on the preceding page (p. 241, n. 2), it would be evident that he does not go so far as Nasse as to their extent.

^{page 293 note 2} Space does not permit the analysis in detail of Mr. Leadam's quotations. I need to deal only with the more important of them. He says that the inclosure recommended by Fitzherbert was to be ‘accompanied by the displacement of some of the inhabitants from their employment—an unpopular and incidentally illegal proceeding’ (above, p. 268). Fitzherbert's scheme of an equitable inclosure by common agreement, by which no husbandmen were to be displaced (at most a few herdmen to suffer change of employment) and no houses to be decayed, could have been, were it put in practice, neither illegal nor unpopular. Each tenant was to consolidate his scattered holdings into six closes which would permit a convertible husbandry, a shifting back and forth from pasture to arable and from exhausted arable to pasture. This is a proposal for arable inclosures, but not at all for such as those Mr. Leadam professes to discover in the Inquisitions of 1517.

It was Fitzherbert's idea to protect and benefit both husbandmen and cottagers as a compensation for the advantage to be gained by the lord through inclosure of his demesne lands. In the second chapter of the Surveying, Fitzherbert advised careful inquiry as to whether these demesne lands lay in intermingled strips or in larger parcels by themselves. In the former case it was ‘convenient’ to keep them in arable open-field cultivation; in the latter case while stating the lord's right to inclose whether for arable or pasture Fitzherbert intimated that inclosure for pasture was the more profitable course to follow.

MrLeadam, thrice uses a passage from Hales's Discourse ('Dialogue of W. S., p. 100Google Scholar) as supporting his argument for inclosure to arable (above, pp. 270, 271 n. 5, 275); but when Hales's argument is examined it will be seen that he uses ‘inclosure’ here in the sense of inclosure of open fields for pasture only (see especially the continuation of his argument, Discourse, pp. 120–24). When farmholdings were converted in greater part to pasture, the residue was presumably left in open-field cultivation. No inference as to inclosure for arable husbandry is permissible.

The quotation from Hales concerning ‘husbandes“ holding in several (see the context in the Discourse, p. 42; Mr. Leadam, p. 269) had reference, like the encomiums of Tusser, to the old inclosed districts which stood quite outside the inclosure movement now under discussion.

^{page 294 note 1} The date of the Lansdowne transcript is probably early in the reign of Edward VI. MrLeadam, bases his description of it as ‘a list of Crown tenants’ (above, p. 273)Google Scholar on the one county of Berkshire. A comparison of the MS. with some of the new Chancery returns shows that this characterisation is not generally applicable.

^{page 294 note 2} Mr. Leadam mentions as among the cases cited by me to prove my contention John Goodwin's case (Mr. Leadam, p. 273). This, however, does not correspond to the facts. I cited John Goodwin's case (p. 252, n. 1) as an ‘exceptional case,’ where the tenant explained that there was no inclosure, but only a house decayed by flood. The jury were mistaken in presenting the case at all, since it was no decay of a mese under the Act, i.e. involving inclosure and conversion to pasture. John Goodwin's case does not justify Mr. Leadam's classification.

Nor does the Farnham case favour his view (Mr. Leadam, p. 272). The defendant here did not mention the conversion clause, but the Attorney-General assumed that the defendant's plea of rebuilding included a reconversion to arable and denied both the rebuilding and the reconversion. It is an instance of the usual contemporary understanding of a presentment of decay.

The Bray case was tried under the Act of 1535–36, which manifestly took for granted that all the presentments of 1517 were accompanied by conversion to pasture (see above, pp. 245–46). The words quoted by Mr. Leadam (above, p. 274, n. 2) are customary in the proceedings under this Act. They follow the recital of the Act and precede the pleadings to declare that the case falls under the statute because before the Michaelmas of 1538 the house was still unbuilt, and the land at that time (adtunc) still lying in pasture. The Act of 1535–36 and the proceedings taken under it confirm plainly my interpretation of the presentments of decay of meses.

^{page 296 note 1} We are assured by MrLeadam, that ‘conversion to pasture, even apart from the decay of a house, was illegal’ (above, p. 271)Google Scholar. This view rests upon his interpretation of the Acts of 1515 (D. In. p. 57) and Wolsey's decree in Chancery of July 12, 1518. But the Acts of 1515 in this respect do nothing more than state clearly the implication of the Act of 1490, that the decay, alone the statutable offence, was understood as one accompanied by conversion to pasture. The Acts of 1515 make no new offence of conversion by itself. Neither does Wolsey's decree. Inclosure offenders who had pleaded the King's pardon or submitted to his mercy were to pull down their inclosures and reconvert the land to tillage within forty days. The decayed houses were doubtless to be rebuilt later, and might have made the subject of another decree. This was the order taken in some of the recognisances, by which the offenders were bound to pull down inclosures and reconvert by a certain date and to rebuild by a certain later date. See, for example, Thos. Hawkyns (Close Roll, no. 388) bound over to put 20 acres in tillage before Michaelmas of 1520 and to rebuild the house before Michaelmas of 1521.

The law officers of the Crown in the Exchequer did not prosecute upon presentments of conversion alone, because they were insufficient in law. See above, p. 250, n. 2.

^{page 297 note 1} Mr. Leadam states (above, p. 274, n. 3): ‘The cases in the L. T. R. rolls show that evidence was taken by the Crown at the time of the later proceedings.’ I have referred to such evidence in the Bastelden and Bucklond cases (pp. 253, 254). The special inquisitions and informations are always for the purpose of testing the truth of the defendant's plea, and always follow his plea. They never precede it for the equipment of the law officers of the Crown with supplementary ‘counts.’ There is no record whatever of supplementary presentments or informations as to the fact of conversion to pasture.

^{page 297 note 2} D. In. pp. 62 and 67.

^{page 298 note 1} The following table illustrates the general rule which is applicable to large inclosures: first that the conversion clause is usually added, and second that their average rental value is high.

For Berkshire and Buckinghamshire, the remaining two counties, see the table on p. 300.

^{page 299 note 1} For the four counties Buckinghamshire, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, and Warwickshire the percentages of the total area of rental entries formed by the acreage of the large inclosures (100 acres and above) expressing conversion to pasture are respectively 57.83, 67.71, 46.26, and 66.96.

^{page 299 note 2} See table on p. 300.

In the subjoined table, with the addition of the cross division distinguishing large and small inclosures, Mr. Leadam's classification is followed as given in D. In. pp. 561–5 and 631–4.

The exceptional character of the Berkshire return is seen both in the preponderance of small inclosures (76.46 per cent, of the total area of rental entries) and in the fact that high rental value and mention of the conversion clause do not coincide in the few large inclosures.

^{page 301 note 1} Though MrLeadam, calls the figures as to acreage derived from the Staffordshire fines ‘not by any means conclusive’ (above, p. 278)Google Scholar, he goes on nevertheless to argue from them that ‘a considerable portion’ of the acreage must have been inclosed for arable cultivation.

^{page 301 note 2} Quarterly Journal of Economics, xi. 206.

^{page 301 note 3} In this connection, it may be permissible to suggest caution in the use of any statistics based upon the fines of the sixteenth century and later. ‘A fine did not ascertain but only comprised the lands whereof it was levied’ (Cruise, , Digest, ed. 1835Google Scholar, v. 137, and see ibid. iv. 119). It was a well-known practice to state the parcels of the fine in fictitious and exaggerated quantities. In a case concerning lands passed by fine in 25 Hen. VIII., Chief Justice Popham said ‘that alwaies more Land is comprised in Fines by number of acres, then men have, or is intended to pass’ (Poph. Rep. p. 105, and see also L. and P. H. VIII. xiii. 33). MrKirk, R. E. G. in his Introduction to the Feet of Fines for Essex (Essex Arch. Soc., 1899)Google Scholar makes mention of these exaggerations, whereby ‘the object of the tine was no longer apparent within its four corners,’ and he informs me that this statement is confirmed by comparisons of the fines with their corresponding deeds or declarations of uses, and that it applies to fines of the sixteenth century and even earlier. Under these circumstances, while from the acreages passed by fines a general inference as to an increasing movement towards pasture farming may possibly be justified, the percentages based on such unreliable figures would hardly warrant more precise conclusions.

^{page 302 note 1} See Mr. Leadam (above, p. 268): ‘He roundly denies the existence of any movement towards inclosure of arable, at least on a scale worthy of mention.’ This has some resemblance to my view, though I naturally prefer my own statement (p. 256). But the qualifying clause is dropped when Mr. Leadam reaches page 279, and by the time the statements quoted in the text emerge all resemblance is lost.

^{page 302 note 2} Nasse's extreme view concerning the character of the agrarian change of the sixteenth century is based on inadequate evidence and was questioned, as I remarked (p. 242, n. 1), by Busch. The latter is, however, still too much influenced by Nasse's ‘grundlegende Arbeit,’ and his note (England unter den Tudors, i. p. 390, cited by MrLeadam, , p. 278Google Scholar) is open to question.

^{page 302 note 3} Mr. Leadam would apparently treat the 255,000 acres of Berkshire arable land (estimated by Dr. Beke at the beginning of the nineteenth century) as ‘inclosures of arable’ (above, p. 284). But Pearce, writing in 1794 after the inclosures of the eighteenth century, states that ‘a moiety, at least, of the arable land in Berkshire is still lying in common fields’ (General View of the Agriculture of Berkshire, 1794, p. 49). Between 1794 and 1808 Mavor estimated that about 30,000 acres had been inclosed from the common fields which, he added, ‘still occupy by far too large a space’ (ibid. ed. 1808, p. 5). Pearce, like Dr. Beke, had made use of Rocque's map of 1761.

^{page 303 note 1} D. In. p. 515.