902 



[Jan., 



populous hamlets. Sheep, '* that were wont to be so myke 

 and tame, and so smal eaters," turned into devourers of human 

 beings : 



They have eate up our niedows and our downes 

 Our corne, our wood, whole villages and townes ; 



" Yea, they have eate up many wealthy men, 



"Besides widowes and orphaue children.'" 



The occasional truth of this picture is confirmed by the elo- 

 quent pen of Sir Thomas More in his Utopia (1516). That the 

 result of enclosures of a wholesale and drastic kind was 

 depopulation cannot be disputed. In particular instances the 

 popular charge was true. It may be questioned whether those 

 instances were typical or exceptional. At this distance of time 

 it is difficult to give any certain or definite answer. But the 

 evidence collected by the Commissions of the 16th and 17th 

 centuries goes to show that enclosures of whole townships 

 were rare. The period coincides with the break-up of feudal 

 households, the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and industrial 

 reconstruction. A flood of pauperism swept over the country, 

 and no doubt agricultural changes contributed to its volume. 

 Numerous insurrections attest the discontent of the rural 

 populations. It suited the dominant political party to 

 emphasise the agrarian causes and to ignore those which 

 originated in the vast religious changes that were taking 

 place. 



It may also be worth while to notice the nature of the 

 motive to which enclosures were attributed. It was alleged 

 that, owing to the great development of the woollen manu- 

 facturers in the early Tudor period, the price of wool rose to 

 such a height as to encourage the abandonment of corn- 

 gTowing for sheep-runs. No doubt commercial motives of this 

 nature accelerated enclosures. But if, during the period when 

 enclosures were proceeding most rapidly, the price of wheat 

 remained relatively higher than that of wool, some additional 

 reason other than trading profit must be found for the con- 

 version of arable into pasture. That reason, it is suggested, 

 is supplied by the exhaustion of the existing corn-land, 

 especially on open-field farms, and by the necessity of restoring 

 its fertility by a prolonged rest under grass. Thus sheep were 

 as much a by-product or result of enclosure as they were its 

 direct object or cause. This view is confirmed by the trend 

 of prices. Enclosure of a piecemeal kind had been going on 

 throughout the 15th century; it received a great expansion 

 in the forty years following 1485, and took, more and more. 



