THE XVTH AND XVlTH CENTURIES 87 



parties. One-fifteenth part of England, some authori- 

 ties conjecture, so changed hands in the course of a 

 few years ; other writers think that far more land 

 was dealt with. Probably as many as eight thousand 

 monks, nuns and friars were at the same time im- 

 poverished. Their dependents involved in this cata- 

 strophe may have numbered ten times as many. 

 Eighty to ninety thousand individuals thrown, even 

 temporarily, out of employ in the course of a few years 

 must have caused much misery, suffering and poverty. 

 Moreover, the disappearance of the monasteries was a 

 blow to agriculture, for some, at least, of the monks 

 were good farmers, collecting information both at home 

 and abroad, and constantly making experiments with 

 seeds introduced from other countries ; whilst their 

 successors were, to quote Sir Thomas More, " covetous 

 and insatiable cormorants," who knew little about 

 agriculture. These new men looked to their land to 

 provide them with an income : they wanted to secure 

 money either from sheep farms or from rents. As a 

 result, on the old monastic land, even in those places 

 where there were no appropriations, the copyholders 

 and other customary tenants who held at fixed and 

 moderate rents, were often deprived of their land, and 

 leaseholders, at higher rents, took their places. 



The increase of trade and the good profits made 

 by those farmers who could obtain land on reason- 

 Therais" a ^ e terms resu l te d, notwithstanding all the 

 of the troubles of the times, in the growth of 



wealth. The change was marked by the 

 building of many fine churches and 

 manor houses, replacing the older simpler buildings 

 of a simpler time. The re-introduction of bricks 



