THE TENANT-FARMER, 1583-1702. 815 



I am resuming here, I attempted, and with considerable success, 

 as the discovery of subsequent evidence showed, to interpret 

 what was the farmer's profit in the middle of Elizabeth's 

 reign, and what was consequently the rent capacity of an Eng- 

 lish tenancy at that time. Early in the seventeenth century 

 the rent of land was at least increased sixfold over that which 

 was paid a generation before, and as I believe almost entirely 

 from the increased price of grain, and in a minor degree from 

 that of other farm produce. Now, as I have shown in the last 

 chapter, the average of wheat between 1541 and 1582 was 

 135. iQ\d. the quarter, between 1583 and 1642 $6s. i</., or 

 from unity to 2-6084, the price of the five different kinds of 

 grain used for human food being from unity to 2-2201. Now 

 it was upon this difference especially that the landowner was 

 able to obtain an increased rent, whether by the competition 

 of tenants, as Norden alleges, or from the power of enforcing 

 an increase by the threat of dispossession, as all other writers 

 on the agricultural situation allege. The hints given by 

 Gregory King as to the condition of the farmer in his time are 

 conclusive as to the latter having been the most powerful 

 cause, and the situation is further illustrated by the fact that 

 by the evidence of the Coke rentals the whole rise was effected 

 early in the seventeenth century. 



Now there is no economical problem more interesting at 

 all times, none which is so interesting at the present time, than 

 the question how rents should be adjusted to a rise or fall in 

 agricultural prices. It is obvious that a moderate fall in the 

 money value of agricultural produce will render a rent ruinous, 

 which before the fall occurred was borne with ease, provided 

 that the cost of production is not materially lessened ; and simi- 

 larly the upward tendency of rents is rapid and obvious when 

 prices rise and the cost of production is not materially in- 

 creased. Now the latter conditions represent the state of the 

 case during the first quarter of the seventeenth century, when 

 as I have said rents rose sixfold, because on the whole the 

 price of corn products rose 132 per cent. The enhanced price 



