IV 



OTHER CAUSES AFFECTING THE POSITION 

 OF THE LANDOWNING CLASSES 



BUT if the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries were 

 disastrous to the smaller owners and tenants it^ does not 

 appear that the class of moderate-sized proprietors was 

 seriously affected. We know that many of the larger 

 freeholders and copyholders on the manors were enclosers 

 themselves. 1 and there are many evidences to show that 

 moderate-sized properties increased at the expense of the 

 very large and very small. 



England during this period was, as we well know, 



passing through a crisis of political, social, and economic 



^change. The old self-sufficing agricultural and industrial 



economy of England, based on custom, was fast breaking 

 down. Competitive rents, competitive prices, competitive 



wagegj were coming in. and the^ modern capitalist had 

 already appeared ; men who treated land as an investment 

 a,nd agriculture as a source of profit. The English squire 

 had taken the place of the mediaeval baron. The successful 

 manufacturer, merchant, and the lawyer were forcing their 

 way into the land market and fast rising into the position 

 of the squire. Hence an intense land hunger was a 



characteristic feature of the Tudor and early Stuart times. 

 A petition of the reign of Henry VIII complains of 

 merchant adventurers, clothmakers, goldsmiths, butchers, 

 tanners, . . . unreasonable and covetous persons, who 



1 Cf. Leadam, Domesday of Enclosures. 



