58 THE ENCLOSURES IN ENGLAND [214 



their land from being deserted. It was necessary to reduce 

 the rent in some way in order to permit the villains to live. 

 The produce of a customary holding was no longer sufficient 

 to maintain life and to allow the holder to render the ser- 

 vices and pay the rent which had been fixed in an earlier cen- 

 tury when the soil was more fertile. 



Notices of vacated holdings date from before 1220 on the 

 estates of the Berkeleys. Thomas the First was lord of 

 Berkeley between 1220 and 1243, and 



Such were the tymes for the most part whilest this Lord 

 Thomas sate Lord, That many of his Tenants in divers of his 

 manors . . . surrendred up and least their lands into his hands 

 because they were not able to pay the rent and doe the services, 

 which also often happened in the tyme of his elder brother the 

 Lord Robert.^ 



This entry in the chronicle is significant, for it is typical 

 of conditions on many other manors at a later date. The 

 tenants were not able to pay the rent and do the services, 

 and therefore gave up the land. It was leased, when men 

 could be found to take it at all, at a rent lower than that 

 which its former holders had found so oppressive. It is 

 interesting to note that much of this land was soon after 

 enclosed and converted to pasture, more than a century be- 

 fore the event which is supposed to mark the beginning of 

 the enclosure movement. CThe productivity of the land had 

 declined ; its holders were no longer able to pay the custom- 

 ary rent, and the lord had to content himself with lower 

 rents; the productivity was so 1^ in some cases that the 

 land was fit only for sheep pasture} 



Land holding was regarded as a misfortune in the four- 

 teenth century. The decline in fertility had made it impossi- 



1 Smyth, Lives of the Berkeleys, vol. i, p. 113. 



