YEOMAN FARMING IN OXFORDSHIRE 201 



such chanced to be yeoman farms, engrossing involved the disap- 

 pearance of the yeomen. But one must inquire what motives led to 

 the engrossing of independent farms rather than construe as a cause 

 of their disappearance what was often actually a result- sometimes 

 long delayed. This paper does not attempt to explain why yeoman 

 holdings vanished before 1755, but simply points out that the 

 invoking of enclosures explains little. The actual order of events 

 appears to be that for certain reasons and by certain means land- 

 lords first acquired estates, and then in the course of time got 

 these accumulated properties enclosed. 



Engrossing was not the only process antecedent to enclosure 

 during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Parallel with it, 

 usually seen in the townships where ownership was getting to be 

 the attribute of a few, but often appearing elsewhere, was the 

 breakdown of the old field systems. These began to give way to 

 complicated systems which allowed almost as elaborate a rotation 

 of crops as was possible on enclosed lands. Great Tew in north- 

 western Oxfordshire made changes in 1759, devised a new 

 rotation in 1761, and taking the next natural step before the 

 rotation had once run its course, undertook enclosure in 1767. 

 The remarkable diversity of field systems in use in Oxfordshire 

 in the late eighteenth century marks a transition stage when an 

 eagerness to use land to the best advantage had not yet achieved 

 enclosure. The numerous enclosures of the Banbury region 

 between 1760 and 1785, unattended for the most part by en- 

 grossing or the disappearance of the independent farmer, are to 

 be attributed to the influence of these progressive ideas. 



Enclosure thus becomes a sign either that the estates of a 

 township have been largely engrossed or that there is impatience 

 with the trammels of the old field systems. Both conditions of 

 course may coexist and hasten the end. Both go back to deeper 

 causes, the working of which caused the independent farmer 

 partly to disappear. Sometimes, to be sure, he disappeared 

 because he stood in the way of the last stage of the process. In a 

 township owned by relatively few men or anxious to get rid of 

 the open-field system, an obstinate yeoman or two may have 

 objected to enclosure and may have been bought out or bullied 



