SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



The inclosures in Aylesbury Hundred are curiously small in extent, since 

 it lay in the centre of the Vale, and in the adjoining hundreds of Ashendon 

 and Cottesloe inclosures for pasture had taken place extensively. The 

 movement was at its height between the years 1491 and 1500, slackening in 

 the succeeding years covered by the reports. This was possibly due to the 

 fact that Buckinghamshire wool was of an inferior quality, and the price was 

 considerably lower than in Oxfordshire or Berkshire. Thus Buckingham- 

 shire farmers may have proved that sheep farming was not so profitable as 

 they had expected. 



In the majority of the returns the amount of damage is estimated by 

 the number of houses destroyed and of ploughs thrown out of use. The 

 tenants were evicted with no compensation for the loss of their houses and 

 lands, and were reduced to extreme poverty. Much less labour was needed 

 on the pasture farms, and there was nowhere for the evicted tenants nor for 

 the labourers to go for employment, for inclosure was as frequent in the 

 neighbouring counties. Still, it must be remembered that the total inclosures 

 recorded formed less than two per cent, of the arable land under cultivation 

 in the counties making the returns, and that in the southern part of 

 Buckinghamshire but few evictions probably took place. Further north, 

 however, there must have been a great deal of distress ; the most serious 

 instances of wholesale evictions were at ' Birdston,' ' Dodershill," ' Littlecot,' 



* Flete Marston,' and ' Hogshaw with the hamlet of Fulbrook,' all in the 

 hundreds of Cottesloe or Ashendon. At Birdstane a freeholder inclosed 

 400 acres of land and converted them to pasture ; four houses were pulled 

 down and sixty people turned out of their houses and lands, which had been 

 cultivated with eight ploughs, and ' the said town, hamlet and manor of 

 Byrdeston was now totally and wholly used and had for the pasture of sheep.' 

 At Doddershall 24 messuages and 24 virgates of land, each containing 40 acres, 

 had supported 120 persons with sixteen ploughs, but they had been turned 

 into pasture and the inhabitants had gone away in extreme poverty. At 

 Littlecote 84 persons had lost their occupations and land and had left the place, 



* for the whole hamlet of Littlecot was devastated and destroyed.' 



The lord of the manor, two freeholders, and a firmer had jointly inclosed 

 140 acres of arable land at Fleet Marston, evicting fifty persons, and only 

 one messuage on the demesne, with five cottages for as many shepherds, had 

 been left standing. A full account is given of the evictions at Hogshaw and 

 its hamlet of Fulbrook, which contained together 1 1 messuages and 390 acres 

 of arable land. From time immemorial these acres had been sown with grain, 

 and six ploughs had been employed on them, but the tenements were held at 

 firm by Ralph Lane and Roger Gifford from the prior of the Hospitallers in 

 England and of the abbot of Eynsham. The prior held the manor of 

 Hogshaw, where there were eight tenements ; Ralph Lane was in actual 

 occupation of the chief messuage of the manor and another smaller tenement. 

 The abbot held three tenements in Fulbrook, where Roger Gifford was also a 

 freeholder, ' seised in demesne of his fee.' The two firmors inclosed the 

 whole of Hogshaw and Fulbrook with a ditch, and ' kept and do now keep 

 in severally the arable lands and converted them to pasture and the pasturage 

 of animals.' Not only was the arable land thus inclosed and converted, but 

 the 569 acres of meadow and pasture were apparently also surrounded by the 



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