84 THE ENCLOSURES IN ENGLAND [240 



' At Forncett, the tenants had begun sheep-farming by the 

 end of the fourteenth century, and had also begun to enclose 

 land in the open-fields; the situation was one, therefore, in 

 which agriculture was likely to be permanently displaced by 

 grazing, according to the commonly accepted theory of the 

 enclosure movement. This change failed to take place ; not 

 because enclosures ceased to be made — nearly half of the 

 acreage of the fields was in enclosures by 1565 — ^but because 

 the tenants preferred to cultivate this enclosed land/ If 

 the enclosures had been pasture when they were first made, 

 they did not remain permanently under grass. Like the 

 land still in the open fields, and like the small enclosures in 

 Cheshire reported by the commission of 15 17, they were 

 sometimes plowed and sometimes laid to grass, according! 

 to the condition of the soil. In a Cheshire village, two ten- 

 ants had small enclosures in the same field, which were 

 treated in this way. At the time the commission visited the 

 place, one of these closes was being used as pasture, and the 

 other was in cultivation. John Monkesfield's close, which 

 had been made six years before, 



continet in se duas acras & diversis temporibus fuit in cultura 

 & diis temporibus in pastura & nunc occupata est in pastura} 



John Molynes* close of one acre had been made the year 

 before and 



fuit antea in pastura S* nunc occupata est in cultura. 



It had evidently been a strip of lea land which had been so 

 im5>roved by being kept under grass that it was in fit con- 

 dition for cultivation, while John Monkesfield's close had 

 been plowed long enough and was just at this time in need 



* Davenport, Norfolk Manor, pp. 8o-8i. 

 2 Leadam, op. cit., pp. 641-644. 



