169] INTRODUCTION 1 3 



pasture. Productivity was gradually restored after some 

 years of rest, and it became possible to resume cultivation. 

 The enclosure movement is explained not by a change in the 

 price of wool, but by the gradual loss of productivity of j 

 common-field land. ^ 



This explanation is not made here for the first time. 

 It is advanced in Denton's England in the Fifteenth Cen- 

 tury ^ and Gardiner, in his Sttidenfs History of Eng- 

 land,^ accepts it. Prothero * and Conner * give it some 

 place in their works. Dr. Simkhovitch, at whose suggestion ] 

 this inquiry was undertaken, has for some time been of the ^ 

 opinion that deterioration of the soil was the fundamental ^ 

 cause of the displacement of arable farming by grazing.* y 

 This explanation, however, stands at the present time as 

 an imverified hypothesis, which has been specifically rejected 

 by Gibbins, in his widely used text-book,® and by .tJ.a§bach,L 

 who objects that Denton does not prove his case. In this 

 respect the theory is no more to be criticised than the theory 

 which these authorities accept, for that does not rest upon 

 proof, but upon the prestige gained through frequent repeti- 

 tion. But the matter need not rest here. It is unnecessary 

 to accept any hypothetical account of events which are, after 

 all, comparatively recent, and for which the evidence is 

 available. 



Of the various sources accessible for the study of the 

 English enclosure movement, one type only has been exten- 



1 (London, 1888), pp. I53-I54. Denton refers here to Gisborne's A^. 

 Essays, as does Curtler, in his Short Hist, of Eng. Ag. (Oxford, 1909). 

 p. 77- 



2 Vol. i, p. 321. 



8 English Farming Past and Present (London, 1912), p. 64. 

 * Common Land and Enclosure, p. 121. 

 5 See Political Science Quarterly, vol. xxxi, p. 214. 

 ^Industry in England (New York, 1897), p. 181. ; 



"i Hist, of the Eng. Ag. Laborer (London, 1908), p. 31. 



