60 ENCLOSURES OF THE FIFTEENTH III 



at the end of the life or lives on a payment of a fine, 

 although the lord might decline to renew ; those for years 

 would terminate at the end of the term, and until the 

 statute 21 Henry VIII, c. 25 could be revoked by the heir 

 xj of the lessor as soon as he came into possession. Now it is 

 reasonable to suppose that a lord, tempted by the increased 

 rent to be obtained from a large grazier, or anxious to take 

 to the profitable business of sheep-farming himself, would 

 evict the cottagers and others who had no legal rights, and 

 decline to renew the leases for years or for lives, except in 

 the first case at exorbitant rents, and in the second of 

 exorbitant fines on renewal. 1 



This would not be surprising in any age, but we have 

 reason to believe that in the Tudor period Englishmen 

 peculiarly grasping and avarinirmg. Luxury wflf j 

 the merchant class was growing, pushing upwards and bny- 

 ingland, and the sort of men who acquired or purchased^ 

 the monastic lands were full of this commercial spirit. 

 Whether the ecclesiastical lords of manors were easier than 

 the old lay lords is doubtful. It would appear that some 

 were so and some were not ; for instance, we find a distinc- 

 tion made between the Bishop and the Prior of Durham. 1 * 



per literas patentee, pro ovilus (stinted), per copiam ; and in one case that 

 of Duntesborne Abbots, Gloucester we hear of Custumarii per indentu- 

 ram, who are apparently tenants on the demesne. But in all proba- 

 bility all these various terms mean nothing but leases. 



1 The levying of heavy fines is a common complaint, though it is 

 difficult sometimes to say whether they were for renewing copyholds 

 or leases for lives, Crowley, Early English Text Soc., pp. 47, 144 ; 

 Latimer, Sermons, p. 101, complains of raising rents. The taking of 

 farms by worshipful men was one cause of the N. Rebellion, State Papers 

 Dom., Hen. VIII, xii. 892 ; Select cases, Court of Requests, 12. 56, Sir 

 John York a good instance, 58. Bacon, Henry VII, ed. 1819, vol. v, 

 p. 61, speaks of tenancies for years and for lives at will, whereupon 

 much of the yeomanry lived, being turned into demesne. 



2 Victoria County Hist. : Durham, 228 ff. ; Leadam, Domesday, vol. i. 

 48. 65, 94, 96, 392 ; Gay, Transactions Royal Hist. Soc., xiv, p. 264. 



