DURING THE FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES. 93 



teenth century, had long been extinct, and the Collector Red- 

 dituum was employed only by very wealthy persons or by 

 opulent corporations. But the Supervisor or Surveyor, who 

 looked after his employer's interest, sold and bought for him 

 as his agent, measured and valued his property, and appraised 

 if he did not collect his rents, was in general demand among 

 well-to-do people. Such persons uphold their honour and 

 degree ' by reason of their rents, issues, revenues, and profits, 

 that come of their manors, lordships, lands and tenements, and 

 by the fact that such interests are butted and bounded, so that 

 no parcel thereof should be lost or " imbeselde." ' 



There are three kinds of common of pasture. In many 

 towns where closes and pastures exist in severalty, there is often 

 a common close taken in out of the common or fields by tenants 

 of the same town, for oxen or kine or other cattle, in which close 

 every man is stinted, from the lord downwards. A second 

 kind is in ' the plain champaign country,' where the cattle go 

 daily before the herdmen, and which lies near the common 

 fields. Here again each person who has the right of use should 

 be stinted, and it is suggested that the principle should be 

 determined by the size of the tenant's holding. The third 

 common is in the lord's out woods, on moors and on heaths, 

 which have never been under the plough. Here the lord 

 should not be stinted, for the soil is his, but his tenants should 

 be, for they have no certain parcel thereof laid to their 

 holdings, but only bit of mouth with their cattle. The stint 

 of cattle, it is added, is necessary, in order to prevent the rich 

 man from buying sheep and cattle in the beginning of summer, 

 getting them into condition, and selling them, all the while 

 sparing his own pastures, and so defrauding the poor man. 

 If roads are improved under the statute of Merton and of 

 Westminster the second, but it be obligatory to leave a suf- 

 ficient common to the tenants of the manor, the estimate of 

 the tenant's right should be proportionate to the amount of 

 cattle which can be maintained in the winter from the hay 

 and straw housed during the season from his several holdings. 



