SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



Robert Bedoe, of London, gave evidence that Jewell Parvishe, of Cuckfield, 

 was occupying 100 acres of land in that parish which had been converted 

 into pasture for sheep, and had not restored it to tillage in pursuance of the 

 Act of 1596 ; the complainant, therefore, prayed that the delinquent should 

 forfeit 200, one-third of which he himself claimed as informer. 182 



It is rather curious to note that in nearly all these cases the presumption 

 of justice is in favour of the incloser ; he generally succeeded in showing 

 that he had compensated the evicted tenants in accordance with previous 

 agreement, and the evidence in one case certainly would seem to point in the 

 direction of real improvements having met with opposition from the tenants. 

 The two cases in which information was given as to the engrossing of farms 

 and excessive sheep-farming were probably prompted by the informer's 

 expectation of obtaining a share in the delinquent's fine, rather than by any 

 knowledge of real injury having been inflicted upon the inhabitants, or upon 

 the agriculture of Cuckfield, Preston, and Patcham. 



It has, indeed, been recently shown that the whole question of inclosing 

 in Sussex bears a very different aspect from that which it has assumed in 

 other midland and southern counties. William Marshall, in 1791, noted the 

 rarity of common fields both in the Weald and elsewhere throughout the 

 county, 188 and Dr. Slater estimates that the total area of common arable fields 

 inclosed by Act of Parliament throughout the county between 1727 and 

 1900 amounted to no more than 15,185 acres. 184 The greater number of 

 parliamentary inclosures within the county have consequently affected 

 commonable waste only, and have had the result of extending cultivation, 

 rather than 'exterminating village communities.' 185 The disappearance of 

 the small proprietor and the increase of the labouring and potentially pauper 

 population must consequently be accounted for here on other grounds. 

 Indeed, small holdings have always been regarded as characteristic of the 

 Weald, and it was chiefly to lack of capital and maladministration of the 

 poor law that much of the distress of the county in the eighteenth and 

 nineteenth centuries was due. 186 



The dissolution of the religious houses and gilds was probably more 

 seriously felt than the inclosing movement. Many of the monasteries had 

 been the dispensers of considerable endowed charities ; thus Lewes Priory 

 distributed doles on Septuagesima Sunday (Carnipedoio), Holy Thursday, and 

 Whit-sunday, amounting in all to 103^. 8d., as well as making a weekly distri- 

 bution of 2s. \od. to 'sundry poor,' and allowing i IQJ. a year to the hospital 

 of St. Nicholas Westout, and 16 los. to that of St. James beside the Priory 

 Gate all these charities being endowed for the soul of the founder of the 

 priory, Earl William de Warenne. The Battle Abbey doles in silver, bread, 

 and herrings at divers times of year, especially on the feast of St. Martin in 

 winter and on Maundy Thursday, amounted to io2s. iod. ; and at Box- 

 grove six poor people received I \d. a day, and on Maundy Thursday distribu- 

 tions of money and corn were made to the value of 30^. At Dureford and 

 Tortington there were annual distributions on the same day, amounting in 

 each case to 26s. S^. 187 The county had, moreover, been rich in hospitals, 



188 Memo. R. Hil. 8 Jas. I, rot. 173. 



188 W. Marshall, Rural Economy of the Southern Counties, ii, 100 and 230 ; and Dr. Slater, op. cit. 232-4. 

 184 Op. cit. 302. 185 Ibid. z. 186 Infra. 187 Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), i, 331, 349, 307, 312, 321. 



191 



