50 LAND REFORM 



worth many times the lawful rent which the copyholder 

 had been paying. That a legal limit should be put to 

 the amount of these fines was one of the demands 

 made by the insurgents during the yeoman and peas- 

 ant rebellions of the sixteenth century.^ Besides these 

 classes there was the great mass of peasantry, prac- 

 tically all of whom had land or rights in the land of 

 some kind. The village tradesmen, smiths, wheel- 

 wrights, and others, also held land of their own, 

 subject to their doing certain work on the lord's 

 demesne. 



The modern historian, as a rule, passes over with 

 scant notice the disputes and severe struggles between 

 the territorial lords and the cultivators of the soil ; and 

 yet these disputes and struggles constitute to a large 

 extent the social, the domestic history of England. 

 The history of the proceedings, legal and illegal, with 

 regard to the land of England has never yet been 

 fully written from the view of the cultivator and of 

 the general community.^ 



^ In the old histories bitter complaints are made of this unjust exer- 

 cise of the arbitrary powers of the landlords. Cases arc recorded where 

 the fines alone which were demanded amounted to ^loo and upwards — 

 probably ten times, and sometimes even twenty times the fixed yearly 

 rentals of the small copyholds. 



^ For valuable suggestions touching the legal part of this chapter I 

 am indebted to Mr. Rowland Powell-Williams, of Lincoln's Inn, son 

 of my former colleague, the late Rt. Hon. J. Powell-Williams, M.P. for 

 the South Division of Birmingham. 



