The Enclosures in England Part 5

[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.

CHAPTER III

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 compet.i.tive system was introduced at the start. This led to the gradual acc.u.mulation 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 dest.i.tute 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 pa.s.s 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 a.s.sente 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 gra.s.s. The better strips were kept under crop.

If we are to accept the testimony of Fitzherbert and Tusser, strips of gra.s.s 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 gra.s.s 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 gra.s.se more sooner to pasture to bring it to pa.s.se.[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 gra.s.s land, or because gra.s.s 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 gra.s.s 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 gra.s.s 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 gra.s.s. 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 gra.s.s 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 gra.s.s 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 gra.s.s strips become mossy and make poor pasture, plow them up and plant them; when arable strips fail to produce good crops, lay them to gra.s.s. 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 gra.s.se, 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 gra.s.s 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 pa.s.sage in which he refers to the laying to gra.s.s 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 a.s.serted 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 una.s.sisted.

Where tenants with or without the a.s.sistance 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 gra.s.s 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 gra.s.s. 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 gra.s.s, 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 gra.s.s 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.