INCLOSURES IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 173 



facts than any notions based upon the unsatisfactory evidence of 

 the sixteenth-century literature, hitherto our main reliance. It is, 

 I repeat, probably under rather than over the truth to say that in 

 the century and a half before 1607 something over half a million 

 acres of cultivated land were taken out of the hands of the tillers 

 of the soil, and inclosed for sheep pasture. But, granting freely 

 to the arguments for an extent of inclosure larger than our figures 

 indicate all the consideration they deserve, the estimate could still 

 be considerably increased and yet be far from supporting the 

 extravagant assertions of contemporary and of modern writers. In 

 truth, all the literary evidence of the period must be treated with 

 a mistrustful caution. Its very exaggeration condemns it. It is 

 impossible to believe that by the first quarter of the sixteenth 

 century the population by reason of these inclosures had been 

 "inestimably" diminished 1 and "mervaylous multitudes " 2 reduced 

 to beggary and crime, that at the close of another quarter of a 

 century two thirds of the land of England were untilled and in 

 " marvelous desolacion," 3 when still each later generation reported 

 that inclosing and its attendant depopulation were proceeding upon 

 an unexampled scale. To cite but single specimens of these 

 reports, Pilkington (shortly before 1 575), 4 the Parliament of 1597, 5 

 Powell, in 1636, 6 were convinced, in the words of the last, that the 

 evil was never " so monstrous, never so great." The statements 

 of the men who witnessed the inclosing movement cannot, 

 unfortunately, be accepted as " certain proofs " 7 of the extent or 



1 Proclamation of 14 July, 1526, Harl. MS. 442, f. 64. 



2 Preamble to 25 Hen. VIII. c. 13 (1534). 



3 Bishop Scory in Strype, Eccl. Mem., edition of 1822, Vol. II, Pt. II, p. 4S2. 

 And Proclamation of 1 June, 154S, Soc. of Antiq. Proclam., Vol. Ill, No. 24. 



4 James Pilkington, Exposition on Nehemian, in Works, published by Parker 

 Society, p. 462. 



5 43 Eliz. cc. 1, 2. 



6 Robert Powell, Depopulation Arraigned, 1636, p. 37. 



7 Uber die Ausdehnung dieser Umwandlung liefern die Werke von Latimer, 

 Starkey, Stafford, Harrison, u. a. untriigliche Beweise (E. C. K. Gonner, in 

 " Handw. d. Staatsw.," 2d ed., Vol. II, p. 391). Cunningham thinks that "the 

 remarks of such writers as Sir Thomas More, the chancellor of the Realm, 

 and Thomas Starkey, a Royal Chaplain, are conclusive as to the wide range 

 over which the change was progressing." "Growth of English Industry," 

 3d ed., 1896, Vol. I, p. 526. 



