46 THE BREAK-UP OF THE MANOR 



the manors and for the household show what amount of corn 

 remained in the granary from the previous year ; how much 

 was each year reaped and winnowed, sold at markets, shipped to 

 sea ; how much was consumed in the lord's house, in his stable, 

 in his kennels, in the poultry yard, or in the falcons' mews ; how 

 much was malted ; how much was given to the poor, to friars 

 and other religious orders by way of yearly allowances. 



The policy of repurchasing freeholds and of increasing enclosures 

 was pursued by the fourth lord (1361-68) and by his son (1368- 

 1417). But from 1385 onwards the practice of farming the 

 demesne lands through the reeves was abandoned. " Then," says 

 Smyth, " began the times to alter, and hee with them (much 

 occasioned by the insurrection of Wat Tyler and generally of all 

 the Comons in the land,) And then instead of manureing his 

 demesnes in each manor with his own servants, oxen, kine, sheep, 

 swine, poultry and the like, under the oversight of the Reeves of 

 the manors. . . . This lord began to joyst and tack in other 

 mens cattle into his pasture grounds by the week, month, and 

 quarter : And to sell his meadow grounds by the acre ; and so 

 between wind and water (as it were) continued part in tillage, 

 and part let out and joysted as aforesaid for the rest of that 

 kings raigne. And after, in the time of Henry the fourth, let 

 out by the year stil more and more by the acre as hee found 

 chapmen and price to his likeing." x The landlord was ceasing to 

 be a patriarchal farmer and becoming only a rent-receiver. The 

 process went on with increasing rapidity. By the end of the reign 

 of Edward IV. the greater part of the manors and demesnes had 

 been let to tenants, either on rack-rents or at lesser rents with the 

 reservation of a fine. The day-works due from the old customary 

 tenants, in proportion to their holdings of yard-lands and " far- 

 rundells," together with their produce rents, were commuted into 

 money equivalents and added to the new rents. 



The story of the Manor of Castle Combe and of the estates of the 

 Berkeleys holds true, with many variations, of England generally. 

 Everywhere the cultivation of demesnes by the labour services of 

 manorial tenants was gradually abandoned, and the older system 

 replaced by separate farms, let for money rents to individual 

 occupiers. The change proceeded more rapidly in the south and 

 south-west than in the north and east. But as the fifteenth century 

 1 Lives of the Berkeleys, vol. ii. pp. 5-6. 



