26 rHE ENCLOSURES IN ENGLAND [182 



Thorold Rogers in his History of Agriculture and Prices in 

 England.^ The averages given in his tables are based upon 

 records of actual sales. They furnish, therefore, the exact 

 information needed in connection with the theory that a rise 

 J in the price of wool relatively to that of wheat was the cause 

 \^ of the enclosure movement in England. In the century and 

 a half before 1400, there were wide fluctuations in the prices 

 of both commodities, but the price of wool rose and fell with 

 that of wheat. The first quarter of the fourteenth century 

 was a period of falling prices. The fall continued in the 

 case of wool until about the middle of the century, when 

 a recovery began, culminating about 1380. A rise in the 

 price of wheat occurred sooner than that of wool and 

 reached its climax about 1375. In the last quarter of the 

 century the prices of both wool and wheat fell, with a 

 slight recovery in the last decade of the century. 



After I4cx> the price of wheat held at about the average 

 price of the previous period, but for sixty years the price of 

 wool fell, without a check in its downward movement. It 

 is in this period that the woollen industry entered upon the 

 period of expansion which is supposed to have been the cause 

 of the enclosure movement, but there was no rise in the 

 price of wool. Instead, there was a decided fall.^ The 

 average price for the decade 145 1- 1460 was just about one- 

 half of the average price for the period 1 261 -1400. (The 

 average price of wool in the last fifty years of the four- 

 teenth century happens to be the same as the average for the 

 period 1 261 -1400. Either the longer or the shorter period 

 may be used indifferently as the basis for comparison) . The 

 average price for the period 1 401 -1460 was 25 per cent 



1 (Oxford, 1866-1902), vols, i, iv. 



2 Increase in manufacture of woollen cloth constituted no increase in 

 the demand for wool in so far as exports of raw wool were reduced. 



