SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC 



HISTORY 



* "W" T is true of this County, that it liveth more by its lands than by its 

 hands. Such the fruitfulness, venting the native commodities thereof 

 at great rates (thank the vicinity of London, the best chapman), that 

 no handicrafts of note, save what are common to other counties, are 

 used therein excepting any will instance in bone lace, much thereof being 

 made about Owldney in this county.' This description of Buckinghamshire 

 in Fuller's Worthies of England 1 sums up the conditions of social and eco- 

 nomic life in the county for many centuries. Until the eighteenth century, 

 when lace-making was extensively carried on, the population was occupied 

 mainly in agriculture and those trades supplementary to it. Corn-dealers, 

 brewers, butchers, masons and men employed in other branches of the 

 building trades, weavers and fullers, tailors, shoemakers, and hatters are the 

 tradesmen that most frequently appear in the county. 



The county is divided into two very distinct divisions by its natural 

 features. In the Chiltern districts the greater proportion of the land is 

 arable and well wooded. To the north of the Chiltern Hills lies the Vale of 

 Aylesbury, a famous pasture country, stretching from the foot of the Chilterns 

 and the borders of Oxfordshire to the western boundary of Hertfordshire, and 

 on the north as far as Wingrave, Wing, and Whitchurch, though the country 

 lying beyond is sometimes included in the vale. Leland ' describes the Vale 

 as being ' cleane barren of wood and is champaine,' and in the sixteenth and 

 seventeenth centuries its pasture was mainly used for sheep-farming, but later, 

 and at the present day, dairy-farming has been found far more profitable 

 owing to the great demand in the London market. 



The towns of Buckinghamshire at no time occupied a very important 

 place in the economic history of the county. In the Domesday Survey 

 Buckingham was the only borough mentioned separately, though a few 

 burgesses were found on the manor of Newport. Aylesbury and Wendover 

 only appear as manors in the hands of the king, and Wycombe as a town is 

 not mentioned at all. In the Hundred Rolls* two towns are mentioned, 

 Newport Pagnel and Wycombe, but they were held as parts of a manor, and 

 paid whatever service was due to the lord of the manor. Certain privileges 

 and exemptions were claimed at Newport Pagnel : no hidage was paid, and 

 some unspecified payment was not made from the borough because the bur- 

 gesses had no land except 'free burgage.' At High Wycombe the whole 



1 p. 193 (ed. Nutttll). ' I tin. iv. 



' llund. R. (Rec. Cora.), i. The reference to Wycombe is for a grant of King John. 



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