72 ENCLOSURES OF THE FIFTEENTH III 



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In a word, though there was not much violation of legg 

 right yet there was a good dpal of injustice, injustice 

 which the Tudor legislation tried to minimize, and with poor 

 success, not by interfering with the legal rights, but by 

 demanding that in enforcing these rights they should not 

 put down ploughs, destroy houses, or otherwise take away 

 employment and cause depopulation. 



That the enclosures of the sixteenth ami parly seven- 

 teenth centuries tended to the disappearance of the small 

 landowner is pretty clear ; but as to how far this change 

 took place at once we have unfortunately very little 

 evidence at present As we shall subsequently see, it is 

 very certain that a great change had taken place by 1785. 

 For the intervening gap we are, however, much in the 

 dark. We have no lists of the 40s. freeholders who enjoyed 

 the parliamentary franchise or were liable to serve on juries, 

 while the Subsidy Rolls, which might give us a rough 

 estimate, have not yet been digested, and they only 

 include men of substance. Moreover, it must be remem- 

 bered that it was by no means the universal pra/finp_ for 

 freeholders or even copyholders to till their own land. 

 We have abundant evidence that Jihey often let out thgir 

 lands to others^ A comparison of the condition of many 

 manors traced from the Middle Ages through the Eliza- 

 bethan and Stuart Surveys, Field Books, and Terriers would 

 help us. But this has not yet been done and I have had 

 no time to do it myself ; all the time at my disposal has 

 been devoted to the eighteenth century. In any case, the 

 Surveys abandon us at the critical time, and the Terriers 

 are not very helpful, being chiefly mere rentals of private 

 estates. The evidence that I have collected from published 

 authorities is very scanty. In some manors there was 

 certainly little change, as for instance in the case of 

 Castle Combe, Wilts., and in Seaton Delaval, Earsdon, 





