A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE 



to pasture land at Burstwick, but no house was destroyed or plough put down. The worst 

 example in this Riding was the eviction of 20 people by Thomas Fairfax at Carthorpe. Consolida- 

 tion with a view to sale was apparently the cause of the proceeding, for the entry closes with the 

 announcement that William Constable is now sole possessor.'^ At Atwick three husband-holdings 

 had been united and the population diminished by i"].^ John Wentworth in Little Cowden 

 changed 100 acres of arable land into pasture, thus throwing 24 people and four ploughs out of 

 employment.^ 



It seems clear that in the North and West Ridings there is little evidence to support any 

 theory of a general conversion of arable land to pasture. In the East Riding the movement was 

 fairly general, the church lands leading the way. The explanation of this dissimilarity is due 

 rather to physical than historic causes. The East Riding had been from time immemorial down to 

 1349 the corn-growing district of the north ; the first impetus towards the change from arable to 

 pasture was given by the Black Death, for in no other part did the pestilence claim so heavy a toll 

 of victims. In the early days of arable conversion, pasture took the place of tillage, not to satisfy 

 the greed of the capitalist, but from sheer inability to find labour to cultivate the land. Several 

 causes were, however, at work in North and West Yorkshire to prevent the inclosure question 

 assuming the threatening aspect that it did in some of the counties. From the settlement of the 

 Cistercians the county had always been a great wool-growing district ; in many parts the climate 

 was unfavourable to corn cultivation. Ryder describes the north-west as being inhabited by 'averie 

 symple plaine people yet lyving without any great labor or riches for the more upon their mylke or 

 sheep, their grayn they have growing is otes only.' ...**' 



Thus inclosure was followed by no great change in economic conditions, shepherds and hinds 

 were still required, and though their numbers might be lessened there was not that dislocation of 

 the labour market that ensued in those counties where inclosure was synonymous with the conver- 

 sion of arable into pasture. So much of the land in North and West Yorkshire was in the hands 

 of the church that the destruction of monasteries was probably a more effective economic factor 

 than the growth of inclosures. ' The Casting down of inclosures of Comyns ' ^ is certainly referred 

 to in the Pilgrimage of Grace ; but it was not, as in the eastern and western revolts, the pivot on 

 which the rebellion turned. 



The statute-book shows that the increase of pasture kt the dissolution of monasteries was a 

 recognized danger. In 1535 it was enacted that the amount of tillage should remain or be restored 

 to what it was twenty years before on all monastic lands." But legislation was at that period, and 

 in remote regions, often inoperative. The reiterated evidence of witnesses in the commissions 

 dealing with Yorkshire lands bears eloquent testimony to the virtues of ecclesiastical landlords. In 

 1572 the people of Myton resisted the demand of the new landlord for the payment of rent 'for 

 the banks and balks in the common fields.' Witness after witness, some of them with memories 

 reaching back more than forty years, was brought forward to prove that no rent had ever been paid 

 to the monastery of St. Mary's, York, for these lands, although they had always used them as 

 pasturage for their draught cattle. If the new claim were sustained ' it would be to the utter 

 impoverishment of the said tenants, for that the lease, if it should pass, might keep the farmers and 

 tenants of Mytons cattle from coming to the water.' "^ 



The eulogy of the author of The Fall of Religious Houses, who lived near Roche Abbey in 

 Yorkshire, may be too fulsome, but it was not entirely undeserved : ' Yea happy was that person 

 that was tenant to an abbey, for it was a rare thing to hear that any tenant was removed by taking 

 his farm over his head, nor he was not afraid of any re-entry for non-payment of rent, if necessity 

 drove him thereunto.' " 



Leland made his famous journey through England in 1536 ; incidentally he gives a great deal 

 of information about inclosures, but the manner in which he describes the country through which 

 he passes is too disjointed and disconnected to leave a clear impression." Although the acreage of 

 the county was great, in the i6th century a considerable part was still forest land, useless for purpose 

 of inclosing. The forest of Galtres, which stretched 10 miles northwards from the very gates of 

 York was so impenetrable that according to tradition a lantern was always hung on the tower of 

 All Hallows Church as a beacon towards which the travellers, when lost in the dense woodland, 



*^ According to Mr. Leadam's calculation, 246. m jj^jj ^ 



" Ibid. 251. 1,200 acres were inclosed by Act in 1760. s' TKirl' ,t, 



^Lansd. MS. 119, 8, fol. iigd. Ibid. 251. 



V ,,Q ''^'''''' ^''"'''^" °^ "-^^ Pilgrimage of Grace,' transcribed by Miss Mary Bateson in Engl. Hist. Rev. 



' ^'f^.I, q r> ^7 , r.,- " Stat. 27 Hen. VIII, cap. 28. 



hxch. Spec. Com. York, 15 Eliz. no. 2571. "^ 



^ B.M. Cole MS. xii, 5, quoted in Cunningham, op. cit. i, 531 

 Co.jTieUslVll't^^'' ''""''"''' P^™^^' '" ^PP^"'''^ ^ ^ C- ^- S^^'-' ^"^'- ^--'^^ --^ Encl. of 



476 



