Agricultural Capital and Profits 61 



bridge Colleges. To remedy this difficulty 

 it was enacted in 1576 that the Colleges of 

 Oxford and Cambridge (including Eton 

 and Winchester) should receive a third of 

 their rents in wheat and malt, or rather in 

 the money value calculated according to 

 the market prices at a particular time. 



Another plan which was generally 

 adopted was to impose a fine on the re- 

 newal of a lease. Fines of this kind had 

 been customary on succession to the villein 

 holdings either by inheritance or alienation, 

 and being in conformity with custom, they 

 were submitted to in the case of leases. 



Rogers also points out that there was all 

 over the country a strong feeling against 

 overbidding the sitting tenant. Seeing, 

 then, that there was no effective competition 

 on the part of possible tenants which would 

 raise the rents, and the sitting tenants 

 themselves, naturally, and by the influence 



