The Enclosures in England Part 7

But if he spent money on marling the soil, he would have nothing to live on while waiting for the crop. The very poverty of the small holders made it necessary for them to sink in still greater poverty, until the lord deprived them of the land, or until they became so discouraged that they gave it up of their own volition. They might easily understand the force of Fitzherbert's arguments without being able to follow his advice. "Marle mendeth all manor of grounde, but it is costly."[122] The same thing is true of manure. According to Denton, the expense of composting land was almost equivalent to the value of the fee simple of the ground. He refers to a record of the early fourteenth century of the payment of more than twice the ordinary rent for composted land.[123] With manure at high prices, the man in difficulty might be tempted to sell what he had; it was certainly out of the question for him to buy more. Or, what amounted to the same thing, he might sell hay or straw, and so reduce the forage for his cattle, and return less to the soil by means of their dung.

Dr. Simkhovitch points out the difference between the farmer who is unable to meet expenses in a particular year because of an exceptionally bad season, and one who is suffering because of progressive deterioration of his farm. The first may borrow and make good the difference the following year; the latter will be unable to extricate himself. He neither has means to increase his holding by renting or buying more land, nor to improve the land which he has already. His distress is c.u.mulative:

Only one with sufficient resources can improve his land. By improving land we add to our capital, while by robbing land we immediately add to our income; in doing so, however, we diminish out of all proportion our capital as farmers, the productive value of our farm land. The individual farmer can therefore improve his land only when in an economically strong position. A farmer who is failing to make a living on his farm is more likely to exploit his farm to the utmost; and when there is no room for further exploitation he is likely to meet the deficit by borrowing, and thus pledging the future productivity of his farm.[124]

While small holders in the open fields were in no position to pay higher rents, the land owners were suffering. Prices were rising, and while the higher price of farm produce in the market was of little help to the tenant whose own family used nearly everything he could raise, the landlords felt the pressure of an increasing cost of living.

Many of us [says the Gentleman, in Hales' dialogue] haue bene driuen to giue over oure houshold, and to kepe either a chambere in london, or to waight on the courte Vncalled, with a man and a lacky after him, wheare he was wonte to kepe halfe a score cleane men in his house, and xxtie or x.x.xtie other persons besides, everie day in the weke.... We are forced either to minyshe the thirde parte of our houshold, or to raise the thirde parte of our Revenues.[125]

It was difficult for the landowners to make economic use of even those portions of the land which were not in the hands of customary tenants.

If they were willing to invest capital in enclosing demesne land and stocking it with sheep, without disturbing their small tenants, they found it impossible to do so. Not only did the poorer tenants have to cultivate land which was barely productive of more than the seed used, because they could not afford to allow it to lie idle as long as it would produce anything; not only did they allow the land which was under gra.s.s to remain practically waste, because they could not afford to enclose it and stock it with sheep; not only did they neglect manuring and marling the land because these improvements were beyond their means, so that the land was constantly growing poorer in their hands, and so that they could pay very little rent; but they were also tenacious of their rights of common over the rest of the land, and resisted all attempts at enclosure of the holdings of the more prosperous tenants, because they had to depend for their living largely upon the "little brede of neate, shepe, swine, gese and hens"

which were maintained partly by the gleanings from other men's land when it lay common.

They undoubtedly suffered when the lord himself or one of the large leaseholders insisted on enclosing some of the land. If the commonable area was reduced, or if the land enclosed was converted from arable to pasture (as it usually was), the means by which they made their living was diminished. The occasional day's wages for labor spent on the land converted was now withdrawn, and the pasturage for the little flock was cut down. The practical effect of even the most innocent-looking enclosures, then, must have been to deprive the poorer families of the means of livelihood, even though they were not evicted from their worthless holdings. Enclosures and depopulation were inseparably linked in the minds of contemporaries, even when the greatest care was taken by the enclosing authorities to safeguard the rights of the tenants.

These rights, however, seriously interfered with the most advantageous use of land, and often were disregarded. Not only did the small holders have rights of common over the rest of the land, but their own strips were intermingled with those of the lord and the large holders.

The typical problem confronting the enclosing landlord is shown below:

HOLDINGS IN OPEN FIELD, WEST LEXHAM, NORFOLK, 1575[126]

_Strips in Furlong A_ _Strips in Furlong B_ 1. Will Yelverton, freeholder. 1. Robert Clemente, freeholder.

2. Demesne. 2. Demesne.

3. Demesne. 3. Demesne.

4. Will Yelverton. 4. Demesne.

5. Demesne. 5. Demesne.

6. Demesne. 6. Demesne.

7. Demesne. 7. Demesne.

8. Demesne. 8. Demesne.

9. Demesne. 9. Will Lee, freeholder.

10. Glebe. 10. Will Gell, copyholder.

11. Demesne. 11. Demesne.

12. Demesne. 12. Demesne.

13. Glebe. 13. Demesne.

If, as was probably the case, the product from these demesne strips was so small that the land was fit only for conversion to pasture, the pecuniary interest of the lord was to be served best by enclosing it and converting it. But should he make three enclosures in furlong A, and two in furlong B, besides taking pains to leave a way clear for Will Yelverton and Lee and Gell to reach their land? Or should he be content merely with enclosing the larger plots of land, because of the expense of hedging and ditching the smaller plots separately from the rest? If he did this, the unenclosed portions would be of little value, as the gra.s.s which grew on them could not be properly utilized for pasture. The final alternative was to get possession of the strips which did not form part of the demesne, so that the whole could be made into one compact enclosure. In order to do this it might be necessary to dispossess Will Lee, Will Gell, _etc._ The intermingling of holdings, in such a way that small holders (whose own land was in such bad condition that they could not pay their rents) blocked the way for improvements on the rest of the land, was probably responsible for many evictions which would not otherwise have taken place.

But not all evictions were due to this cause alone. The income to the owner from land which was left in the hands of customary tenants was much lower than if it was managed by large holders with sufficient capital to carry out necessary changes. Where it is possible to compare the rents paid by large and small holders on the same manor, this fact is apparent:

AVERAGE RENT PER ACRE OF LAND ON FIVE MANORS IN WILTSHIRE, 1568[127]

I II III

s. d. s. d. s. d.

Lands held by farmers 1 6 7 3/4 1 5 3/4

Lands held by customary tenants 7 1/2 5 1 0 3/4

IV V

s. d. s. d.

Lands held by farmers 1 1 3/4 1 5 1/2

Lands held by customary tenants 5 3/4 5 3/4

The differences in these rents are sufficient to be tempting to the lord who was seeking his own interest. The large holders were able to expend the capital necessary for enclosing and converting the part of the land which could not be profitably cultivated because of its bad condition. The capital necessary for this process itself was considerable, and besides, it was necessary to wait several years before there was a return on the investment, while the sod was forming, to say nothing of the large expenditure necessary for the purchase of the sheep. The land when so treated, however, enabled the investor to pay higher rents than the open-field husbandmen who "rubbed forth their estate in the poorest plight."[128]

A lord who was willing to consider only pecuniary advantage had everything to gain by clearing the land entirely of small holders, and putting it in the hands of men with capital. It is, therefore, to the credit of these landowners that there are so few authentic cases of the depopulation of entire villages and the conversion of all of the arable land into sheep runs. These cases made the lords who were responsible notorious and were, no doubt, exceptional. Nearly fifteen hundred places were covered by the reports of the commissions of 1517 and 1607, and Professor Gay has found among these "but a round dozen villages or hamlets which were all enclosed and emptied of their inhabitants, the full half of them in Northamptonshire."[129] For the most part, the enclosures reported under the inquisitions as well as those indicated on the maps and surveys of the period involved only small areas, and point to a process of piece-meal enclosure. The landowners seem to have been reluctant to cause hardship and to have left the open-field tenants undisturbed as far as possible, contenting themselves with the enclosure and conversion of small plots of land.

The social consequences of so-called depopulating enclosure were serious, but they are not seen in their proper perspective when one imagines the condition of the evicted tenants to have been fairly good before they were dispossessed. The cause lying back of the enclosure movement was bringing about the gradual sinking of family after family, even when no evictions were made. To attribute the poverty and misery of the rural population to the enclosure movement is to overlook the unhappy condition of the peasants, even where no enclosures had been made. Enclosures had been forbidden in the fields of royal manors in Northamptonshire, but this did not protect the peasantry from dest.i.tution. The manor of Grafton, for instance, was surveyed in 1526 and a note was made at the end of the survey that the revenue drawn from the lordship had lately been increased, but "there can no ferther enprovemente there be made and to kepe the tenantries standyng. Item the tenauntriez there be in sore decaye." The surveyor of Hartwell also notes that the "tenements there be in decay."[130]

The economic basis of the unfortunate social changes which were a.s.sociated with the process of enclosure came gradually to be recognized. It was evidently futile to enact laws requiring the cultivation of land "wasted and worn with continual plowing and thereby made bare, barren and very unfruitfull."[131] Merely restrictive and prohibitory legislation was followed by the suggestion of constructive measures. Until the middle of the sixteenth century, laws were made in the attempt to put a stop to the conversion of arable land to pasture under any conditions, and required that land which had been under cultivation should be plowed in the future. In the act of 1552, however, an att.i.tude somewhat more reasonable is to be seen. It was provided that land which had been under cultivation within a certain number of years preceding the act should be tilled, "_or so much in quant.i.ty_."[132] Public men were also urging that less time be devoted to the futile attempt to force men to cultivate land unfit for tillage, and that encouragement be given instead to measures for improving the waste, and bringing fresh land under the plow.[133]

After a time, moreover, another fact became apparent: there was a marked tendency to break up and again cultivate the land which in former generations had been converted to pasture. The statute of 1597 not only contained a proviso permitting the conversion of arable fields to pasture on condition that other land be tilled instead,[134]

thus tacitly admitting that the reason for withdrawing land from cultivation was not the low price of grain, but the barrenness of the land, but also explicitly referred to this fact in another proviso permitting the conversion of arable land to pasture temporarily, _for the purpose of recovering its strength_:

Provided, nevertheless, That if anie _P_son or Body Pollitique or Corporate hath ... laide or hereafter shall lay anie grownde to graze, or hathe used or shall use the same grownde with shepe or anie other cattell, which Grownde hath bene or shall be dryven or worne owte with Tillage, onely upon good Husbandrie, and with intente bona fide withowt Fraude or Covyne the same Grownde shall recover Harte and Strengthe, an not with intent to continue the same otherwise in shepe Pasture or for fattinge or grazinge of Cattell, that no such _P_son or Body Politike or Corporate shall be intended for that Grownde a Converter within the meaning of this Lawe.[135]

A speaker in the House of Commons commends these provisions:

For it fareth with the earth as with other creatures that through continual labour grow faint and feeble-hearted, and therefore, if it be so far driven as to be out of breath, we may now by this law resort to a more l.u.s.ty and proud piece of ground while the first gathers strength, which will be a means that the earth yearly shall be surcharged with burden of her own excess. And this did the former lawmakers overslip, tyeing the land once tilled to a perpetual bondage and servitude of being ever tilled.[136]

Several years before the pa.s.sage of this statute, Bacon had remarked that men were breaking up pasture land and planting it voluntarily.[137]

In 1619, a commission was appointed to consider the granting of licenses "for arable lands converted from tillage to pasture." The proclamation creating this commission, after referring to the laws formerly made against such conversions, continues:

As there is much arable land of that nature become pasture, so is there by reason thereof, much more other lands of old pasture and waste, and wood lands where the plough neuer entred, as well as of the same pasture lands so heretofore conuerted, become errable, and by husbandrie made fruitfull with corne ... the quant.i.tie and qualitie of errable and Corne lands at this day doth much exceed the quant.i.tie that was at the making of the saide Lawe.... As the want thereof [of corn] shall appeare, or the price thereof increase, all or a great part of those lands which were heretofore converted from errable to pasture and have sithence gotten heart, strength and fruitfulness, will be reduced to Corne lands againe, to the great increase of graine to the Commonwealth and profite to each man in his private.[138]

John Hales had protested against depopulating enclosures, in 1549, by appealing to the public spirit of landowners. They increased their profits by converting arable land to pasture, but, he argued,

It may not be liefull for euery man to vse his owne as hym lysteth, but eueyre man must vse that he hath to the most benefyte of his countrie. Ther must be somethynge deuysed to quenche this insatiable thirst of greedynes of men.[139]

But now it was no longer necessary to persuade the owners of this same land to forgo their own interests for the sake of the public good.

Those whose land had been used as pasture for a great number of years were finding it valuable arable, because of its long period of rest and regeneration. Land which had been converted to pasture was being put under the plow because of the greater profit of tillage.

So great was the profit of cultivating these pastures that landlords who were opposed to having pastures broken up by leaseholders had difficulty in preventing it. Towards the end of the sixteenth century at Hawsted, and in the beginning of the seventeenth, a number of leases contained the express provision that no pastures were to be broken up. In 1620 and the years following, some of the leases permitted cultivation of pasture, on the condition that the land was to be laid to gra.s.s again five years before the expiration of the lease.[140]

There is no doubt of the fact that much land was being converted from pasture to arable in this period. Evidence of this tendency multiplies as the century advances. In 1656 Joseph Lee gave a list of fifteen towns where arable land hitherto converted to pasture had been plowed up again within thirty years.[141]