38 THE BREAK-UP OF THE MANOR 



his own customary tenants, the lord of the manor could always 

 enclose the wastes at pleasure. Whether before 1236 he had the 

 same power at common law against the free tenants of the manor is 

 disputed. Be this as it may, the Statute of Merton ^ in that year 

 empowered the lord of the manor to enclose against his free tenants, 

 provided enough pasture was left to satisfy his previous grants of 

 rights of common. Fifty years later, the Statute of Westminster ^ 

 (1285) extended the lord's right of enclosure to the case of those 

 neighbours and strangers who had acquired grazing rights, subject 

 to the same condition of sufficiency of pasture. Practically the 

 existence of rights of common of pasture only prevented enclosures 

 when the rights were enjoyed by the associated body of tenants 

 over one another's cultivated and commonable land, or when 

 general rights, vaguely expressed, had been acquired by strangers 

 or neighbours over the untilled wastes of the lord of the manor. 

 Unless a custom to the contrary could be estabHshed, an enclosure 

 of untilled waste by the lord of the manor would be upheld in the 

 law courts, provided that the number of Hve-stock which could be 

 turned out by the commoners was certain or capable of being 

 ascertained, and that enough pasture was left to satisfy the grazing 

 rights. 



As early as the end of the twelfth century, landlords had begun 

 to wi'thdraw their demesne lands from the village farm, to con- 

 sohdate, enclose, and cultivate them in separate OAvnership. They 

 had also pared the outskirts of their woods and chases, reclaimed 

 and enclosed these " assart " lands, as they were called, and either 

 added them to their demesnes or let them in several occupations. 

 They had also begun to encourage partners in village farms ^ to 

 agree among themselves, to extinguish their mutual rights of 

 common over the cultivated land which they occupied, to con- 

 sohdate their holdings by exchange, and to till them as separate 

 farms. The pace at which these enclosures proceeded, and the 

 extent to which they were carried, varied with each comity and 

 almost with each manor. But by the end of the fifteenth century, 

 though the great bulk of the village farms remained untouched, the 

 area of land over which manorial tenants enjoyed rights of common 

 was considerably diminished, partly by the action of lords of the 

 manors, partly by that of the tenants themselves. Portions of the 



1 20 Hen. III. c. 4. " 13 Ed. I. c. 46. 



^ See chapter i. p. 6, note 1, and pp. 23-27. 



