24 



THE ENCLOSURES IN ENGLAND 



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at which the price of wool is supposed to have risen suffi- 

 ciently to displace agriculture for the sake of wool grow- 

 ing, and this early reduction in the arable cannot, clearly, 

 be accounted for by reference to the prices of wool and grain. 

 But it also happens that, in the very period when an in- 

 crease in the demand for wool is usually alleged as the cause 

 of the enclosures, the price of wool fell relatively to that of 

 grain. The increase in sheep- farming in the fifteenth and 



sixteenth centuries, together with the fact that the domestic 

 cloth manufacture was being improved at this time, has 

 been the basis of the assumption that the price of wool was 

 rising. The causal sequence has been supposed to be : ( i ) 

 an increase in the manufacture of woollens; (2) an in- 

 crease in the demand for wool; (3) an increase in the price 

 of wool; (4) an increase in wool-growing at the expense 

 of tillage, and the enclosure of common lands. If, as a 



