1921.] The Enclosure of Open-Fiej.d Farms. 901 



temporary grasses and roots, and the application of the more 

 abundant manure which the increased facilities for stall feeding 

 in the winter months provided. In the earlier period, the first 

 remedy was adopted, in the later period, the second. In both 

 the agency was enclosure, either of a part of the land or on 

 a scale which involved the break up of the agrarian partner- 

 ships. Commercial motives, no doubt, operated to accelerate 

 both changes. There was money to be made by enclosures. 

 But from the economic point of view the movement was 

 necessitated by the national interest in the maximum yield 

 from the soil of the countr}^ 



Within the framework of the open-field system, enclosure 

 was at work. The weaker men were dropping out. and the 

 more substantial men were taking up the vacated holdings. 

 By arrangement among the tenants there was also an inter- 

 change and consolidation of intermixed strips. In both cases 

 the change V\^as often follow^ed by piecemeal enclosure for 

 separate use, either temporary or permanent. But the process 

 was so slow that it excited little comment or apprehension, 

 though its social effect was to increase the growing numJoer 

 of landless men. The smaller holders who were able to 

 survive, did so through the common rights of pasture. Tf their 

 arable strips ^delded little or no produce, their retention, though 

 unfilled, carried with them the right to pasture their live stock. 

 PiVen where a man had vacated his arable holding, he still 

 clung to the privileges which it had conferred, especially the 

 common shackage in the stubbles of the open fields. Many 

 of the common rights thus exercised were a breach of the 

 open-field system, and had their origin in sufferance or 

 encroachment. 



It was not till the period 1485-1560 that the enclosing move- 

 ment, long in progress, reached a height which alarmed the 

 country. The ephemeral literature to which it gave birth must 

 be taken with the proverbial grain of salt. There was much 

 exaggeration as well as truth in the description of its social 

 consequences. The contemporary explanation, widely dis- 

 seminated, was that the progress of enclosures, and the 

 extensive conversion of tillage to pasture, were due to the greed 

 of landowners. Tempted by the high prices of wool, so ran 

 the charge, the landowners, and especially the new ones, 

 evicted the open-field farmers from the arable land, meadows 

 and common pasture of the village farms, and turned the whole 

 into sheep walks. A shepherd and his dog took the place of 



