199] 



THE PRICE OF WOOL 



43 



also been shown that the conversion of arable to pasture did 

 not cease at the beginning of the seventeenth century. If 

 the principal cause of the enclosure movement had been the 

 increasing demand for wool, this cause would have ceased 

 to operate when time had elapsed for the shifting of enough 

 land from tillage to pasture to increase the supply of wool. 

 That the conversion of arable to pasture did not cease after 

 a reasonable time had passed is an indication that its cause 

 was not the demand for wool. When it is found that pas- 

 ture was being converted to arable at the same time that 

 other land was withdrawn from cultivation and laid to grass, 

 the insufficiency of the accepted explanation of the enclosure 

 movement is made even more apparent. A change in the 

 price of wool could at best explain the conversion in one 

 direction only. The theory that the cause of the enclosure 

 movement was the high price of wool must be rejected, and a 

 more critical study must be made of the readjustments in 

 the use of land which became conspicuous in the fourteenth 

 century, but which are overlooked in the orthodox 'account 

 of the enclosure movement. 



