62 AGRICULTURE IN THE 



low moral tone which ensued. His language is so character- 

 istic and significant that I will quote it. * When there were 

 many and competent rectors of churches, and in residence, 

 strifes and dissensions which arose in the parish or among the 

 parishioners were brought to an end, and silenced by the sound 

 handling and counsel of such rectors, and there were conse- 

 sequently few pleadings and actions set up by lawyers and 

 jurists, because there were few plaints, for the labour and 

 diligence of parsons and rectors quelled and settled them as 

 soon as they began. But now, lawsuits, plaints, quarrels, and 

 pleadings are multiplied and prolonged ; and consequently the 

 benefits which might have been effected by good deeds are 

 turned over to lawyers, advocates, and pleaders, and by the 

 multiplication of these strifes and actions, due to the lack of 

 good rectors, residing on their cures, lawyers, jurists, and advo- 

 cates, and pleaders for knaves are far more numerous than 

 of yore, who defend bad men for ill affection, or for ill fears. 

 And yet many causes, after a public pleading and great expense, 

 are finally settled by great men's handling V Whatever may 

 have been the cause, it is clear from the evidence of the 

 Paston letters that lawsuits were common, a fact which is 

 illustrated and confirmed by the year books of Edward the 

 Fourth, and the use which the Tudors made of legal subtleties 

 for the purpose of a despotic administration. 



The English landowner did all the repairs which were needed 

 for the occupancy of the tenant, as well as all the permanent 

 buildings and necessary outlay on cultivated land. For in- 

 stance, New College, in Oxford, had from early times consider- 

 able house property in the town. The tenements in its possession 

 were always repaired at the expense of the college, as I have 

 shewn in a rental printed in the third volume. The rule, which 

 is characteristic in English farm tenancies, was as exact in the 

 lease of lands. In one year (1500-1), Magdalene College, 

 Oxford, allowed the price of 607 sheep to the tenants of its 



1 Gascoigne, Loci e Lib. Vcrit., p. 109. 



