40 ENCLOSURES OF THE FIFTEENTH III 



by which enclosure may be effected by agreement without 

 depopulation ; to which he adds, that if so done, and if the 

 land enclosed were used for arable purposes, it would not 

 only increase the produce but be to the interests of the 

 poor. 1 And the last, Standish, New Directions to Commons' 

 Complaint, is also chiefly concerned with enclosure for 

 arable purposes, which was not so disastrous as when the 

 land was used for pasture. 2 



We must, however, remember that the enclosing of the 

 sixteenth century was for the most part, at all events in 

 the districts where it caused most complaint, the enclosing 

 of the common open field, not of the waste or commons, 3 

 and that the land so enclosed was used chiefly not for 

 arable purposes but for pasture, mainly of sheep. This is 

 the change which is so violently denounced by most 

 writers. A few quotations will serve to show the nature 

 of the alleged grievance. ' Surely/ says Moore in his 

 Scripture Word against Enclosure, p. 6, 'they may 

 make men as soon believe that there is no sun in the 

 firmament as that . . . decay of tillage will not follow 

 enclosure in our inland counties.' 4 ' Therefore/ says 

 Sir Thomas More, ' that one covetous and insatiable cor- 

 morant may compass about and enclose many thousand 

 acres of ground together within one pale or hedge, the 

 husbandmen be thrust out of their own, or by violent 

 oppression they be put beside it, or by covin and fraud 

 they be so weaned that they be compelled to sell all ; by 



1 Fitzherbert, Surveying, p. 96, ch. 40. 



3 Standish, New Directions to Commons' Complaint, 1613. 



s The enclosure of the waste, however, caused some discontent, 

 more especially in the North, e.g. Pilgrimage of Grace and revolt 

 under Somerset. Transactions Koyal Hist. Soc. xviii. 196 ff. 



4 As to proportion of enclosed lands being used for arable and 

 pasture, cf. Leadam, Domesday, 41. 42 ; Gay, Transactions Royal Hist. 

 Soc. xiv. 243 ; English Hist. Review, July, 1908, 268. 



