INTRODUCTION 13 



" The cultivated districts generally stretch along narrow dales or 

 valleys, hemmed in by mountains, and divided into small farms ; 

 a great part of which belong to and are occupied by small landholders, 

 who hold it under the lord of the manor chiefly by customary tenure, 

 which differs but little from copyhold." The statesmen held their 

 land in freehold or by customary tenure of the lord of the manor, in 

 contradistinction to the fanners who leased their holdings from the 

 greater landowners. The holdings of the statesmen were small and 

 of the value of £10 to £20, and in some cases up to £50 a year. It was 

 rare to meet a farmer who paid £100, though there were a few who paid 

 £200 or £250 a year for rent. The statesmen constituted a peasant 

 proprietary, which at one time occupied nearly the whole of the county ; 

 in the dales the holdings were small, but with the extensive common 

 rights were sufficient to maintain a family in fair comfort, and even 

 to educate one of the younger sons for the church. 



In the conveyance of the farms and tenements of Ravenstonedale 

 by Henry VIII. to Lord Wharton in 1541, the number of landholders 

 in the dale was 187, and of these 138 held 1,020 acres, or a little over 

 7 acres each, the holdings varying from 2 to 36 acres of customary 

 measure, the remainder were holders of cottages or cottages with 

 " intakes," the area of which were not stated in the conveyance. The 

 tenants bought the right to the trees and underwood in 1592. In 1727 

 the Wharton estates were confiscated, and the manor and advowson 

 sold to Robert Lowther in 1728 ; at the same time the great and 

 small tithes were bought by the tenant landholders in the parish. 

 In 1734 the number of landholders was 181, and their property was 

 valued at £1,988 8s. In the beginning of the nineteenth century the 

 last vestige of tenantry under the lord was removed by the land- 

 holders or statesmen, as they were now called, purchasing of the lord 

 of the manor the Lord's Rent, they thus became absolute freeholders 

 of their little estates. From this time the statesmen in the dale, in 

 common with the rest of the county, rapidly diminished in number, 

 and by 1877 the number of landowners was reduced to 70, but the 

 annual value had increased to £8,784. 



" The statesmen," wrote Housman, " were honest and sincere, 

 tenacious of old established customs, laborious, and content with plain 

 but wholesome food. Injustice and fraud are almost utterly unknown. 



