THE ENGLISH LAND SYSTEM 53 



the statute contained no provision whatever for the 

 descendants of the then existing freeholders and 

 commoners, whose rights in the soil — rights equal to 

 those of the lords — were thus extinguished. 



The effect of these statutes was not immediately 

 felt. The population was then so small, the extent of 

 the so-called "wastes" so vast, that it was only in a 

 limited number of cases that lords of the manor found 

 it to their interest to inclose. But the evil seed had 

 been sown which was to ripen into disaster and ruin. 

 The Black Death, imported into this country in 1348, 

 destroyed, according to the lowest estimate, a third of 

 the whole population.^ This appalling mortality caused 

 such a dearth of labour that it was found more profit- 

 able to lay down land in grass, and consequently 

 inclosures were multiplied. 



The high price of wool early in the fifteenth century 

 gave an immense impetus to the practice of inclosures. 

 The increasing demand for English wool, from Flan- 

 ders and other manufacturing places, stimulated the 

 rapacity of the landlord class, who found that by 

 creating large sheep-farms, their revenues were enor- 

 mously increased. 



As land became more valuable, so inclosures, legal 

 and illegal, were carried on with increasing activity — 

 an activity that was continued through successive 

 centuries down to about two generations ago. 



During these centuries the act of stealing the goose 

 from the common was treated as a violation of the 

 rights of property, to be promptly dealt with by 

 the prison and the gibbet ; but the seizing of the 



1 All the old chroniclers refer to this fearful pestilence. For a modern 

 account of its origin and progress, see " Six Centuries of Work and Wages," 

 Thorold Rogers, Vol. I, p. 219. 



