CIVILIZATION AND ITS EFFECT 67 



The peasant farmers so freed lost ground in another 



direction : they lost their hold on the land. The old 



manorial tenant, the bondsman, although 



custom* by ne na d no legal rights enforceable in the 



replaced by national courts, had nevertheless a real grip 



leaseholders. if -i v j . - i / 



on the soil ; but during the period of 



reconstruction the copyholders and other customary 

 tenants were largely squeezed out, to be replaced by 

 farmers who took land on annual tenancies or on leases 

 for lives or for years, holding on a less continuous tenure 

 than the old peasant families. 



Concurrently, the number of hired labourers, a 

 very small body in early days, increased considerably, 



and from the XlVth century onward the 

 labourers agricultural labourer has formed a definite 



class in rural life. 



Another change of great importance came about on 

 the appropriation and re-arrangement of land through 



what are called enclosures. As used in 

 Enclosures rural history, the word 'enclosure' indicates 



the enclosing of the land within new boun- 

 daries, when any part of an estate is converted from 

 property subject to common control or common use 

 to private ownership : it contains the two ideas : the 

 fencing in of the land and the withdrawing of it from 

 a common use. Enclosures are responsible for the 

 dividing up of the land into fenced fields, parks and 

 woods, such as we see to-day. Enclosure has been 

 going on since the earliest times, and is still occurring 

 in a few places. In the XlVth century it certainly 

 became a common practice. These enclosures have been 

 carried out in many ways and have had many different 



