YEOMAN FARMING IN OXFORDSHIRE 185 



vague numerical statements made and from the loose use of the 

 term "yeoman. " The only numerical pronouncement upon which 

 all observers could agree was that yeomen had disappeared in 

 Norfolk and had fallen off in Lancashire and Cheshire. Else- 

 where definiteness is attained in ascribing to the yeomanry one- 

 third of the North Riding of Yorkshire, one-third of Berkshire, 

 and one-fifth of the South Holland and one-half of the Fen 

 districts of Lincolnshire. Shropshire is estimated to have three 

 thousand freeholders and copyholders, or, as an earlier writer put 

 it, "an infinite number." Most often, however, the phrase is 

 simply " many " or "a considerable number," an expression which 

 we have no means of gauging. Still more troublesome is the term 

 "yeoman." Originally perhaps limited to forty-shilling free- 

 holders, it had come in the eighteenth century to include at times 

 copyholders and tenant farmers. Since the distinction between 

 tillers of freehold and copyhold land was at this time slight, their 

 confusion need not trouble us. For English social and economic 

 history, however, it is of considerable importance to separate 

 lessees from occupying owners. Precisely because the county 

 reports confuse the two under the term "yeoman," they are likely 

 to be misleading and to endanger conclusions based upon them. 



In view of this varying connotation of the word "yeoman," of 

 the vagueness of the statements made about the persistence of the 

 class, and of the somewhat general knowledge upon which such 

 statements must have been based, it may not be amiss to try to 

 get more accurate information regarding independent farming 

 within a limited area. Such a study I have attempted for Oxford- 

 shire, and the results are here presented. The term " yeoman " is 

 retained but is always used to designate an independent or land- 

 owning farmer (occupying owner). The data are based upon three 

 groups of documents, hitherto little used, assessments of the 

 Land Tax, enclosure awards, and manorial surveys. 



Very recently Mr. A. H. Johnson has published his Ford 

 Lectures for 1909 on the disappearance of the small landowner. 

 He, for the first time, has used the Land Tax assessments. Those 

 utilized in the present paper are summarized in his last chapter 

 and some from other counties are there added. The conclusion 



