y 



263] ENCLOSURE FOR SHEEP PASTURE 107 



explained by fluctuations in the price of wool. The price 

 of wool fell in the fifteenth century. Sheep-farming wa^ 

 comparatively profitable because the soil of the ancient fields 

 was too barren to repay the costs of tillage. Land which 

 was in part already abandoned, was turned into pasture. 

 The barrenness and low productivity of the common fields 

 is explicitly recognised by contemporaries, and is given as 

 the reason for the conversion of arable to pasture. Its use 

 s pasture for a long period of years gave it the needed 

 rest and restored its fertility, and pasture land which could 

 bear crops was being brought again under cultivation dur- 

 ing the centuries in which the enclosure movement was 

 most marked. 



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