70 ENGLISH RURAL LIFE 



the village communities, gathered together under the 

 title of the parish, maintained their position, and were, 

 in the XVIth century, given a clear status when they 

 were made definitely responsible both for the roads 

 and for the administration of the poor law. These 

 two questions assumed an increasing importance as 

 time went on, and gave the parish officials much work 

 to do, until their transference to new authorities in 

 the XlXth century. 



(The decay both of the manorial system and the 

 feudal organization that stood above it, and the intro- 

 duction of the commercial point of view, 

 New people developed a new style of countryman, who 

 features. verv gradually replaced the old type. The 

 lord, the governor of the manor, was re- 

 placed by the squire, the peasant gave way to the 

 farmer,)and the village craftsman lost ground through 

 the competition of the artisans and shopkeepers of 

 the country towns : dealers obtained an increased 

 importance, and where they aided their business by 

 money-lending, became a strong influence in country 

 life : whilst, of course,^ the labouring class grew. ] At 

 the same time England ceased to be primarily an 

 agricultural country, and trade and manufacture 

 became the main national interest. 



fr wo incidents that occurred in Tudor times 

 the breakdown of the system of entails and the dissolu- 

 tion of the monasteries brought, for the first time in 

 English history, a very large amount of land into the 

 market, and although the old system of vesting land in 

 families was practically reconstructed by the lawyers, 

 two hundred years later, by their ingenious system of 

 land settlements, buying and selling of land became and 



