upon which all cattlo owned in a parish were turned out together 

 during a portion of the year. Even with this help much meat 

 was salted on the approach of winter. Of this common land 

 there were large tracts, enabling the poor, the very poorest, to 

 live roughly, often as squatters, sometimes to become freeholders, 

 if left too long unmolested. The older customs, especially those 

 relating to the smaller tenants, were interfered with by the dis- 

 solution of the monasteries. The extensive estates of these 

 bodies, largely obtained without cost, had been let at low rentals, 

 and, as usual with corporation real estate, without much super- 

 vision. On their being re-distributed, the new proprietors threw 

 together the smaller holdings, enclosed much of the common 

 lands, and converted others into pasture or park for their own use. 

 This was done, as besides that wool growing was more profitable 

 than corn, the lands could the more easily be retained in hand. 

 Under this process, many who had been small holders and so 

 fairly independent, were compelled to become labourers, or, fall- 

 ing into extreme poverty, were driven into new districts far from 

 their old associations. Districts previously having a dozen 

 ploughs, and a population of a hundred or more, were left with 

 but three or four inhabitants, these being the master and 

 his shepherds. Another consequence Avas, that whilst the 

 production of corn remained in the poor man's hands, whose 

 necessities obliged him to sell and so keep the early markets 

 cheap and Avell supplied, the breeding of cattle fell into the hands 

 of the rich, the holders of pasture, and as these could sell or not 

 as they chose, such stock became very dear. All poultry and 

 eggs rose to a remarkable jirice, these being then as now, as a 

 profitable stock, entirely the produce of the small holder. 



These alterations however were not the immediate result of the 

 Reformation, they had been in progress long before. Leland, 

 writing of Thornbury, says, the Duke of Buckingham, in 1511, 

 made a " fayre park by the Castle and tooke much fayre ground 

 in it very frutcfull of come, now ftiyre launds for coursynge. 



