FARMINa FOE, PEOFIT 19 



class of rights depended the prosperity, if not the very 

 existence, of agi'arian associations ; they afforded the only 

 means of keeping live stock. It may be doubted whether, 

 before 1236, lords of manors could by common law enclose 

 wastes subject to rights of common ; but, be this as it may, 

 in that year the Statute of Merton sanctioned enclosures 

 against all freeholders whose rights of common were derived 

 from the owner of the soil. Fifty years later the right of 

 enclosure was extended by the Statute of Westminster 

 against commoners whose right was not derived from the 

 lord of the manor. ' Many of the lordes,' says Fitzherbert 

 at the beginning of the sixteenth century, ' have enclosed 

 a great part of their waste grounds, and straightened their 

 tenants of their common therein.' 



The example of the landlord was often followed by the 

 principal partners of the village farm. During the same 

 period numerous agreements were entered into between 

 the commoners to extinguish, temporarily or permanently, 

 the right to graze the arable lands from harvest to seed- 

 time. ' Licenses ' were given to the tenantry ' to enclose 

 part of their arable lands, and to take in new intakes or 

 closes out of the commons.' Finally, lords of manors 

 withdrew and enclosed their demesne lands which lay in 

 the common fields, thus still further curtailing the right of 

 common pasture. Fitzherbert says that, before 1530, ' the 

 mooste part of the lordes have enclosed their demeyn 

 landes and meadows, and kept them in severalties, so that 

 their tenauntes have no common with them therein.' 



This agricultural change was accelerated by a social 

 and commercial revolution. The Hundred Years' war 

 maintained the external features of a system which was 

 completely undennined. It is this fact which gives 

 the air of hollowness and artificialit}^ to the reign of 



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