Synopsis of CJiapters. xv 



CHAPTER XX. 



THE CONXECTION BETWEEN LAND AND TRADE. 



PAGE 



The__£ro\s±lL. of a middle class — Immense importance of the com- 

 mercial interest —Universal attraction of all capital into trading 

 enterprises — Decline of feudalism — The system of liveries — 

 Seignorial magnihcence — Lord Warwick's splendid equipments 

 — The meals of the period — The machinery wherehy a great 

 Seignorial householder was enabled to cater for the wants of his 

 guests —Heraldry and castellated dwellings — Their interference 

 with peaceful pursuits — Royal alarm at the system of livery — 

 Restrictive legislation — ^Maintenance of suits — The population 

 of England at this period — Class distinctions — The professions 

 — Landed gentry and middle grades in town and village — 

 Knights and varlets — Social distinctions in rural and commer- 

 cial circles— Opposition of the burgess to any intrusion of 

 countrymen into his environment — Eagerness of the peasantry 

 to migrate into the towns — Political importance of the landed 

 gentry as compai-ed with that of the merchant class— Money 

 determines the latter's social standing, pedigree that of the 

 former 271 



CHAPTER XXI. 



INFLUENCE OF THE CHURCH AND EFFECTS OF THE FALL OF THE ECCLE- 

 SIASTICAL LANDLORDS ON THE ENGLISH LANDED INTERESTS. 



The large numbers of the Clergy and their grades of distinction — ■ 

 The enormous influence of the Church in rural matters demon- 

 strated — Saints' days vised to mark the dates for all important 

 agricultural matters — Rogation-tide — Ecclesiastical literature 

 on the subject of farming — Native and foreign ecclesiastical 

 farming knowledge compared — The products of monastic gardens 

 — A brief sketch of the national kitchen garden at this period — 

 The fall of the monastic clergy, and its apparently small re- 

 sults to the national husbandry — The mission of monasticism 

 accomplished — The king's neglect to apply, according to the 

 legislative provisions, the confiscated endowments to national 

 wants — The consequent deprivation of the poor by the appro- 

 priation of their relief funds — The gradual growth of the Poor 

 Laws — The evasion by the commercial interest of any real par- 

 ticipation in the new relief legislation — The Elizabethan sta- 

 tutes compared with more modern legislation, and the changes in 

 the nation's views shown to be injurious to the Landed Interest 286 



CHAPTER XXII. 



GENERAL ASPECT OF THE COUNTRY, WITH ITS HOUSES, GARDENS, 

 AND ORCHARDS. 



The country roads — The great national highwaj^s — The king's 

 peace and the highway — Road repairs — State of the national 

 thoroughfares — Liability of the Landed Interest for highway 

 maintenance— An imaginary journey through Tudor England — 

 The scenes along the great Fosse Way, from its beginning in 

 Cornwall to its termination at Lincoln — Watling Street, and 

 the objects of interest visible along its route from the cherry 

 orchards of Kent to the western limits of Wales — A bird's-eye 



