

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



monasteries, and contained 4,293 acres of waste, extending into fourteen 

 parishes and hamlets. The king considering that the 



barrenness and infertility thereof by want of industry and diligence of men .... 

 breadithe as well scarsitye and lacke of all manner of grayne, grasse, woode, and 

 other necessarie thinges amonges thinhabitauntes of the said Parishes ; . . . . even 

 so the conversion thereof into tyllage and severall pasture by men's labor and 

 paynes, besides that it shall be an exile of ydlenes in those parties, must of necessitye 

 cause and bringe furthe to all his saide subjectes plentye and haboundance of all 

 the thinges above remembred, 



has had portions of the heath assigned to each parish, and it is 

 enacted that the waste and heath can be inclosed by decision of four 

 commissioners and shall immediately be and remain perpetually copyhold 

 land, or it may be held on lease for twenty-one years, the tenants to 

 improve at will. 



In 1575 the tenants at Enfield petitioned 118 the queen against an 

 inclosure of 53 acres, made by the lessee of the manor, of land which 

 had beyond the memory of man lain open as common once a year. This 

 ' evil example has given courage ' to one of the keepers of the chase to 

 inclose 12 acres of common land. They, the tenants, are charged with 

 carrying duties to the royal household ; ' to remove your Majesty with 

 12 carts in summer and eight in winter, either lying at Endfield or 

 within 20 miles of London,' besides 400 horse-loads of wheat and grain, 

 and carrying of poultry, ' which service to doo and see performyd they 

 shall not be hable if the said Taylor and Holt be sufferyd to inclose their 

 commen.' In 1589, 90 acres of a piece of ground, which the tenants 

 claim as common, having been inclosed by nine different owners in pieces 

 varying from 50 to 2 acres, a feminine riot ensued, 'certain women of the 

 town ' to the number of twenty-four, the wives of labourers and trades- 

 men of Enfield, ' assembled themselves riotously and in warlike manner, 

 being armed with swords, daggers, staves, knives, and other weapons,' 

 broke into one of the inclosures and plucked up the fencing. The 

 women, some of whom were ' greate with child and expecting every 

 hour to travaile,' were in danger of imprisonment for the offence, and 

 the inhabitants and the queen's tenants of Enfield petition Burghley to 

 interfere in their favour and to get the common back. 120 What the 

 results were on these two occasions we do not know, but the persistent 

 opposition of the Enfield tenants did succeed in impeding the progress 

 of hedge and pale, as is shown by the report to the Board of Agriculture 

 in 1795. There are many indictments in the sessions rolls for breaking 

 into inclosures in different parts of the county, of ' gentlemen ' as well 

 as of ' yomen ' and labourers. 



The Londoners saw with equal disfavour the inclosure of waste 

 lands near the City walls, which they had been accustomed to use 

 for their recreation and their archery practice. So 'on a morning ' 

 in 1513 ' they assembled themselves and went with spades and shovels,' 



118 B.M. Lansdowne MS. 105, No. 7. "' Jeaffreson, Midd. Sen. Rolls (Midd. Rec. Soc.), i, 188. 

 110 B.M. Lansdowne MS. 59, fols. 30-1. 



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