CULTIVATION AT CUXHAM. 747 



it was by these enclosures that the landowners augmented their 

 incomes, little being available as yet for a rise in rents, directly 

 or indirectly, on the old tenancies. And if the tenant, in con- 

 sideration of the landlord doing all the improvements and 

 repairs and insuring the stock, paid double the rent, viz. is. the 

 acre, 6d. being generally gotten in 1332, nearly the whole ad- 

 ditional profit would have been exhausted. Nor should we lose 

 sight of the fact that as servants in husbandry are almost uni- 

 versally boarded, this part of their wages would inevitably rise in 

 the ratio at which the price of food rose ; and we may conclude 

 that as, to judge from the rate of money wages, it was more ex- 

 pedient to pay money than to feed labour, the employer must 

 have had some strong inducement to adopt the latter course. 



I am quite aware that the figures which are contained in 

 this estimate, result in no more than an attempt to form 

 a hypothetical balance-sheet of a farmer's tenancy under a 

 corporation in Oxford, in the middle of Elizabeth's reign, and 

 are therefore far removed from the absolute accuracy of the 

 two balance-sheets in Vol. I, pp. 678-681. But the figures are 

 derived from facts, and from averages constructed from the 

 facts, and I have no doubt that, were the record discoverable, 

 it would be found that the Cuxham estate of two carucates 

 was let in 1561-70 at about 12 a year, and that when the 

 statute of Elizabeth (18, cap. 6) came into force, it was virtually 

 raised to 16 or 18 ; since a quarter of wheat, or its value, 

 was to be paid for every 6s. $d. ; a quarter of malt, or its value, 

 for every 5.$-. of rent 1 . This provision can have been made, 

 only because it was, in the absence of the means for inducing 

 competition for occupancy, the sole process by which the land- 

 owner was able to gain a share in that extra profit which was 

 being derived from increased prices and diminished cost. It 

 is also noteworthy that the statute was passed in 1576 (the 

 Parliament began to sit on Feb. 6 and was prorogued on 

 March 15), but did not come into operation till 1582. This 



1 Since making the above calculation I have examined the Merton College register, 

 and find that in 1590 the Cuxham rental was 16 l*]s. 6d. 



