YlnMAN FARMING IN OXFORDSHIRE 2OI 



such chanced to be yeoman farms, engrossing involved the disap- 

 pearance of the yeomen. Hut one must inquire what motives led to 

 the engrossing of independent farms rather than construe as a cause 

 of their disappearance what was often actually a result sometimes 

 long delayed. This paper does not attempt to explain why yeoman 

 holdings vanished before 1755, but simply points put that the 

 invoking of enclosures explains little. The actual order of events 

 appears to be that for certain reasons and by certain means land- 

 lords first acquired estates, and then in the course of time got 

 these accumulated properties enclosed. 



Kn grossing was not the only process antecedent to enclosure 



during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Parallel with it, 



usually seen in the townships where ownership was getting to be 



the attribute of a few, but often appearing elsewhere, was the 



breakdown of the old field systems. These began to give way to 



complicated systems which allowed almost as elaborate a rotation 



of crops as was possible on enclosed lands. Great Tew in north- 



:n Oxfordshire made changes in 1759, devised a new 



rotation in 1761, and taking the next natural step before the 



rotation had once run its course, undertook enclosure in 1767. 



The remarkable diversity of field systems in use in Oxfordshire 



in the late eighteenth century marks a transition stage when an 



eagerness to use land to the best advantage had not yet achieved 



enclosure. The numerous enclosures of the Hanbury region 



n 1760 and 1785, unattended for the most part by en- 



ng or the disappearance of the independent farmer, are to 



ributed to the influence of these progressive ideas. 



Kmlosurc thus becomes a sign either that the estates of a 



township have been largely engrossed or that there is impatience 



with the trammels ,f the old field systems. Both conditions of 



iv coexist and hasten the end. Both go back to deeper 



-, the working of which caused the independent farmer 



partly to disappear. Sometii; , he disappeared 



ise he stood in the way of tin- the process. In a 



hip owned by relatively few men urns to get rid of 



pen-field , an obstinate yeoman or two may have 



objected to enclosure and may have been bought out or bullied 



