20 FAEMING FOE PEOFIT 



Edward III. The feudal organisation of society was 

 breaking up ; land was regarded as a source not of power^ 

 but of wealth. The tendency set in strongly towards 

 small convertible arable farms ; tenants withdrew from the 

 common farm of the township, and exchanged their scat- 

 tered strips for solid tenements of from 10 to 120 acres; 

 landlords found self-farming unprofitable, and divided their 

 demesnes into small holdings let on lease, when agricul- 

 tural services were commuted for money, and the Black 

 Death had raised the rate of wages. 



The withdrawal of the English landlord from the 

 agrarian partnership exactly corresponds to the process 

 which took place in the present century on the Continent. 

 It was a change from common to individual ownership ; 

 land was divided between the lord of the manor and the 

 association ; rights of common, mutually enjoyed, were 

 extinguished. In its results, manorial estates were con- 

 solidated, partly by withdrawal from the village farm, 

 partly by the enclosure of wastes, and many of the agra- 

 rian associations were broken up. When these partner- 

 ships were dissolved, common-field farmers enclosed their 

 strips and became peasant proprietors. Wliere the 

 association lingered on, its farming steadily deteriorated, 

 as well from the contraction of the area of the common 

 farm as from the neglect of the ' field constraint ' which 

 had been mainly enforced by the landlord's oflScers. 

 Yeomen were little affected by a chauge which slightly 

 increased their numbers. The two classes that eventually 

 suffered were the ' common-field farmers,' to use the 

 eighteenth century description, and the cottagers or 

 emancipated serfs, who had no share in the lands of the 

 agrarian community, but lived as hired labourers, supple- 

 menting their wages by keeping cattle on the rough 



