42 AGRICULTURE IN THE 



the landlords and lords of manors to take advantage of him 

 whenever an emergency may be laid hold of, with being checks 

 on activity in agriculture, and with the creation of a permanent 

 feeling of distrust between lord and tenant. Nor is the 

 criticism, or prejudice, very successfully met, by supercilious 

 rejoinders on the part of the surveyor, or by insisting that the 

 lord of the manor was to his tenants what the king, on the 

 passive obedience theory of the time, was to his subjects. 

 The surveyor is much more in the right when he tells the 

 tenant that the lord is perfectly justified in looking after 

 what is legally and morally his own, and that as he will get 

 information as to what are his rights and his powers, it is 

 desirable that he should rather employ the services of a re- 

 sponsible man of business, than those of an adventurer and 

 eavesdropper 1 , who wrongs the tenant in order to curry favour 

 with the lord. He also says that, to a great extent, the tenant 

 is himself the cause of the exactions levied on him. 



When an explanation is demanded, he says that the madness, 

 or emulation of tenants in bidding against each other for new 

 occupancies, has astonished him, and explains the charges put 

 upon them. * And,' he continues, ' should any that is in authority 

 in this case (who in duty is not to hinder the lord) or the lord 

 himself inhibit such hot* spirits to climb as high for the 

 lord's advantage as the ladder of their own will, or supposed 

 ability, will reach ? ' 'I should think it a greater madness for 

 a lord wilfully to refuse what is so voluntarily offered, and 

 so willingly given. And who is the cause of raising rents 

 and fines ? ' It seems that the manner in which lands were let 

 was by * proclamation in open court/ to which competitors 

 were invited. Norden is the first author who has come to my 

 notice who supplies the fact that competitive rents were 

 beginning to be known. 



The farmer then complains that excessive fines are levied on 

 customary inheritances, and quotes cases within the manor 



1 In page 14 of Norden's work, some curious evidence is given as to the custom 

 of people advertising themselves on posts in the streets of London. 



