808 THE CONDITION OF 



land in the case of some of those Colleges which have contri- 

 buted so much to the information contained in these volumes, 

 and I spent many hours in striving to interpret the progressive 

 rise in rent from the progress of the fine. But I discovered, 

 to my disappointment, that I had lost my labour. In the 

 first place, the particulars in the fine books rarely give the 

 acreage of the estate, and as rarely the extent to which this 

 was enlarged by enclosures, or lessened by exchanges which 

 corporations could always effect, or by alienations which 

 they could complete with the licence of the Visitor. I found 

 therefore that a comparison between an estimated rent at the 

 beginning of the seventeenth century with the rack-rented 

 estates of these corporations, specified in the parliamentary 

 return of 1874, left it uncertain as to whether the dimensions 

 of the estate at (say) 1600 and thirteen years ago were the 

 same. And then the lease was beneficial, i.e. it gave no hint 

 as to what was paid by the subtenant l . 



Much land beyond that possessed by academical corpora- 

 tions was let on the principle which they adopted. Leases 

 for lives, annuities from land for lives, and beneficial leases 

 exactly like these referred to above, were common, universal with 

 ecclesiastical corporations, and not infrequent with private 

 owners. How exceedingly beneficial they were to the original 

 lessee is very conclusively proved by the action taken by 

 Parliament after the establishment of the Ecclesiastical Com- 

 mission, which at once refused to renew the leases, and pro- 

 ceeded to run out the term. Parliament gave assistance to 

 the lessees, under which they acquired the freehold of these 

 leases on most advantageous terms. The property either 

 belonged to the Church or to the public. If to the former, 

 the landowners robbed the clergy ; if to the latter, the 

 nation. 



The beneficial lease is all but extinguished. Warned by 



1 From the New College fine book, it seems that the reputed rack-rent, which 

 the College took as the basis of the fine, was in fact 25 per cent, below the 

 actual rack-rent. 



