175] ^^^^ PRICE OF WOOL ig 



by a rise in the price of wool, and that the conversion of 

 arable land to pasture ceased when this cause ceased to 

 operate. 



Against this general explanation of the enclosure move- 

 ment, it is urged, first, that the withdrawal of land from 

 cultivation began long before the date at which the enclosure 

 movement, caused by an alleged rise in the price of wool, 

 is ordinarily said to have begun. The fourteenth century 

 was marked by agrarian readjustments which have a direct 

 relation to the enclosure movement, and which cannot be 

 explained by the Black Death or the price of wool. Even in 

 the thirteenth century the causes leading to the enclosure 

 movement were well marked. Secondly, the cause of the 

 substitution of sheep-farming for agriculture in the fifteenth 

 and sixteenth centuries cannot have been a rise in the price 

 of wool relatively to that of grain, because statistics show 

 that the price of wool fell during the fifteenth century, and 

 failed to rise as rapidly as that of wheat in the sixteenth 

 century. Thirdly, a mere comparison of the relative prices 

 of grazing and agricultural products vcannot explain the fact . 

 that conversion of open-field lana to pasture continued 

 throughout the seventeenth century in spite of prices which 

 made it profitable for landowners at the same time to con- 

 vert a large amoimt of grass-lana to tillage, including en- 

 closures which had formerly been taken from the common 

 fields. If these facts are accepted the explanation of the 

 enclosure movement which is based upon a comparison of 

 the prices of wheat and wool must be rejected, and the story 

 must be told from a different point of view. 



Taking up these points in order, we shall inquire first into 

 the causes of the agrarian readjustments of the fourteenth 

 century. A generation after the Black Death, the commuta- 

 tion of villain services and the introduction of the leasehold 

 system had made notable progress. The leasing of the 



