DURING THE FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES. 1O/ 



and the increase of man's sustenance, and that now the persons 

 are minished, that husbandry, which is the greatest commodity 

 of the realm for the sustenance of men, is greatly decayed, that 

 churches are destroyed, and divine offices are neglected or 

 suspended, and that the public health and safety are en 

 dangered by accumulations of filth, the yawning cellars of 

 deserted and ruinous houses, and other consequences of urban 

 depopulation. The owners of the soil on which the houses 

 are decayed are bidden to rebuild them, on pain of forfeiture 

 to the king or lord. The pasture lands too are to be restored 

 to tillage. The statute is reenacted totidem verbis in the next 

 year, appearing as 7 Hen. VIII, cap. i. 



It appears that this enactment failed to produce, at least 

 permanently, the effects intended, for by the preamble of 27 

 Hen. VIII, cap. 22, the mischief is again dealt with. The same 

 or similar penalties are enacted, and the new statute further 

 orders that the owners of lands taken by tenants to farm shall 

 provide proper farm-buildings for every 50, 40, or 30 acres so let. 

 The act is made to apply to the following counties, Lincoln- 

 shire, Notts, Leicestershire, Warwick, Rutland, Northants, Beds, 

 Bucks, Oxon, Berks, the Isle of Wight, Worcestershire, Herts, 

 and Cambridgeshire. These districts, it will be seen, are 

 among those which were most generally prosperous in the 

 three assessments commented on above. In the same year 

 (27 Hen. VIII, cap. i), the following towns are described as 

 greatly decayed, Nottingham, Shrewsbury, Ludlow, Bridgnorth, 

 Queenborough, Northampton, and Gloucester ; and the remedy 

 which the statute provides is that stated above. It may be 

 added that in the previous year, 26 Hen. VIII, caps. 8, 9, 

 it is stated that Norwich had not recovered from the great 

 fire which happened six-and-twenty years before, a reference 

 probably to the event which is copied in the Notes from the 

 Norwich register as occurring in 1507 ; and that the town of 

 King's Lynn had been seriously injured by irruptions of the 

 sea, which is to be remedied by the construction of proper 

 walls and piers. 



