76 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 



the domestic system of the manufacture of wool, which sup- 

 planted the guild system, led, owing to its rapid and successful 

 growth, to a constant and increasing demand for wool. At the 

 same time this development of the cloth industry helped to 

 alleviate the evils it had itself caused by giving employment to 

 many whom the agricultural changes wholly or partially 

 deprived of work. ' It is important to remember, that where 

 peasant proprietorship and small farming did maintain their 

 ground it was largely due to the domestic industries which 

 supplemented the profits of agriculture.' * 



Much of the land laid down to grass was demesne land, but 

 many of the common arable fields were enclosed and laid down. 

 John Ross of Warwick about 1460 compares the country as 

 he knew it with the picture presented by the Hundred Rolls in 

 Edward I's time, showing how many villages had been depopu- 

 lated ; and he mentions the inconvenience to travellers in having 

 to get down frequently to open the gates of enclosed fields. 2 



Enclosure was really a sure sign of agricultural progress ; 

 nearly all the agricultural writers from Fitzherbert onwards 

 are agreed that enclosed land produced much more than unin- 

 closed. Fitzherbert, in the fi rst quarter of the sixteenth century, 

 said an acre of land rented for 6d. uninclosed was worth 8^. 

 when enclosed. Gabriel Plattes, in the seventeenth century, 

 said an acre enclosed was worth four in common. In fact, the 

 history of enclosures is part of the history of the great revolu- 

 tion in agriculture by which the manorial system was converted 

 into the modern system as we know it to-day of several owner- 

 ship and the triumvirate of landlord, tenant farmer, and labourer. 

 No one could have objected to the enclosure of waste ; it was 

 that of the common arable fields and of the common pasture 

 that excited the indignation of contemporaries. They saw 

 many of the small holders displaced and the country-side 



1 Ashley, English Woollen Industry, pp. 80-1. Broadly speaking, there 

 are four stages in the development of industry the family system, the 

 guild system, the domestic system, and the factory system. 



2 Hist. Reg. Angl. p. 120. 



