FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES. 63 



several estates, on account of losses above a fixed number by 

 the prevalence of murrain l . I infer from such facts, as I do 

 from the persistently low rents of the sixteenth century, that it 

 was easier for a tenant to find a landlord, than for a landlord 

 to find a tenant. At the same time, it is also clear that the 

 margin from which rent could have been paid was very narrow. 

 In 1530 a farmer's stock at Deddington is valued as follows: 



22 qrs. 5 bshls. wheat @ 5/4 

 25 barley @ 2/- 



23 oats @ 1/8 



ii ,,4 bshls. peas @ 2/- 



4 horses @ 1 0/6 



2 jumenta @ 4/- 



2 hens and I cock /6 



2 geese and 9 ducks ... /6 



Total 18/6/8$ 



4 cows @ 8/- 



His holding is fifty-two acres arable, and his rent is 8 6s. 8d. 

 and one quarter of oats. This, exclusive of the corn payment, 

 is zs. 6d. an acre, if we can conclude that the arable land is 

 all of which his holding consisted. It gives the produce of his 

 land, if this is also a complete reckoning of his harvest, at 

 rather more than twelve and a-half bushels an acre. But the 

 rent, which is exceedingly high, suggests that the land must 

 have been exceptionally good, and must have been accompanied 

 by some considerable amount of several meadow. 



The substitution of sheep-farming for agriculture is a frequent 

 subject of complaint in the later years of the sixteenth century, 

 and of not a little legislation. The practice appears to have 

 arisen from two causes the deficiency of capital, owing to the 

 general impoverishment of the country, and to the high prices 

 of wool. Unfortunately, I have very little evidence of the 

 prices of wool during the last fifty years of my enquiry. But 

 my readers will find five entries from the same place (Oxford) 

 between the years 1547-1575. In these years the prices by the 

 tod of sSlbs. are as follows : gs. 4^., gs., i$s. 8d., i6s., and 2os. 

 In the same years the price of the quarter of wheat Wcj,s 45. i id., 

 gs. $\d., us. 10 Id., gs. iod., and 15^. nd., the last of these years 

 only reaching nearly to that threefold increase of prices which, 



1 See, in the 'notes' under 1447-8, the allowances of New College to their tenant at 

 Alton Barnes. These notes might have been multiplied. 



