chronicles." There stands out here conspicuously the assertion of two evils: the danger of loss from the cessation of grainfarming and the supposed diminution of population. "I condemn our covetous and new devised inclosures which convert champion and fruitfull soiles, being good arable ground, to pasture, casting halfe a cornefield to a sheepe's pasture. And so thereby diminish God's people, and depopulate townes. Secondly, I joine depopulation of towns and this new kind of inclosure together; because the one of them doth follow the other commonly, even as necessarily as the shadow doth the body." 2 "Ther ys no man but he seth the grete enclosyng in every parte of herabul3 land; and where as was corne and fruteful tyllage, now nothyng ys but pasturys and playnys, by the reson wherof many villagys and townys are in few days ruynate and dekeyed." Leland complains, "But always the most part of enclosures be for pasturages." 5 The first statute of Henry VIII on the subject is especially directed against this possible loss by the substitution of sheep-farming for tillage. "All suche townes vyllages boroughis & hamletts tythyng housys ⚫ and other inhabitacions in ony parysshe or parisshis wythin this reame, wherof the more parte the fyrst daye of thys present parliament was or were usyd and occupyed to tyllage & husbondrye by the owner & owners therof for theyr owne synguler profytt avayle & lucre, wylfully be syth the seyd fyrst day or hereafter schall be suffrid or causyd to fall downe & decaye wherby the husbondry of the seyd townes . . . bene or hereafter shalbe decayed & torned from the sayd use & occupacyon of husbondry and tyllage into pasture, shalbe by the seyd owner or owners their heires successours or assignes or other 1 John Hales, Charge at Assembly for Execution of Commission on Enclosures, Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials, II, ii, 352. * Francis Trigge, The Humble Petition of Two Sisters, etc. • Arable. Thomas Starkey, Dialogue between Pole and Lupset, pp. 96, 97. for them wythin j yere next after suche wylfull decaye reedefyed & made ageyn mete & convenyent for people to dwele & inhabyte in the same, and to have use & therin to exercyse husbondry & tyllage as att the seyd fyrst day of this present parliament or sythen was there usyd occupyed & had, after the maner & usage of the countrey where the seyd land lyeth." Somewhat vaguely recognized in this condemnation was the fear that food would become more scarce, population less, and the established order subverted. Moreover, the men of the time felt instinctively that the passage from an arable to a sheep-raising husbandry was a step backward. And they were right; all history teaches that a society based upon agriculture is capable of a higher degree of civilization than is possible for a pastoral society. Whether there was an actual total diminution of population may well be questioned, though it seems to have been the almost unquestioned belief of the contemporary critics, at least down to the middle of the sixteenth century. About 1536, Starkey says, "Wherfor hyt ys not to be dowtyd, but that thys dekey, both of cytes and townys, and also of vyllagys, in the hole cuntrey, declaryth playnly a lake of pepul and skarsenes of men. Besyd this, the dekey of craftys in cytes and townys (wych we se manyfestly in every place) schowyth also, as me semyth, a plain lake of pepul. Moreover, the ground wich lyth in thys reame untyllyd and brought to no profyt nor use of man, but lyth as barren, or to the nuryschyng of wyld bestys, me thynkyth coud not ly long after such maner yf ther were not lake of pepul and skarsenes of men." And again: "For thys ys no doute, in tyme past many mo have byn nuryschyd therin, and the cuntrey hath byn more populos, then hyt ys now. And thys ys les doute, that other cuntreys in lyke space or les dothe susteyn much more pepul then 1 Dialogue between Pole and Lupset, pp. 72, 73. • Ibid., p. 75. dothe thys of ourys." The summing up of the "sheep tract," referred to before, is as follows: Furthermore, as we do thinke, this Realme doeth decaye by thys meanes: It is to understande and knowen, that there is in England, townes and villages to the nomber of fifty thousand & upward, & for every towne and village, take them one with an other throughout all, there is one plowe decayed sens the fyrste yeare of the raigne of kynge Henry the Seventh. And in som townes and vyllages all the hole towne decayed sens that time; and yf there be for every towne and village one plough decayed, sens the first yeare of the raygne of kyng Henry the Seventh, then is there decayed fifty thousande plowes and upwards. "The whiche fifty thousande plowes, euerye ploughe were able to mainteine vi. persons: that is to saye, the man, the wyfe, and fower other in his house, lesse and more. Fifty thousande plowes, six persons to euery plough, draweth to the nomber of thre hundred thousand persons were wont to have meate, drynke, and rayment, uprysing, and downe lying, paying skot and lot to God, and to the Kyng. And now they have nothyinge, but goeth about in England from dore to dore, and axe theyr almose for Goddes sake. And because they will not begge, some of them doeth steale, and then they be hanged, and thus the Realme doeth decay, and by none other wayes els, as we do thinke."2 And Latimer's vigorous protest comes to the same thing: "Furder more, if the kinges honour (as sum men say) standeth in the great multitude of people. Then these grasiers, inclosers, and rente rearers, are hinderers of the kings honour. For where as have bene a greate many of householders and inhabitauntes, ther is nowe but a shepherd and his dogge." 8 Even in semi-official documents we find the 16 Henry VIII, chap. 5, 1514. * Certayne causes gathered together, etc., about 1550, published by the Early English Text Society, in Four Supplications, pp. 101, 102. • First Sermon before Edward VI, 1549, Arber Reprint, p. 40. same view taken : "Where there were in few years ten or twelve thousand people, there be now scarce four thousand; where there were a thousand, now scarce three hundred, and in many places, where there were very many able to defend ✓ our country from landing of our enemies, now almost none. Sheep and cattle that were ordained to be eaten of men, hath eaten up the men." 1 Such a general depopulation was looked upon as a tangible danger. "And then, yf everie man should doe so (followinge the example of anie other), what should ensue therof but a mere solitude and utter dissolation to the whole Realme, furnished only with shepe and shepherdes instead of good men; whearby it might be a pray to oure enymies that first would sett uppon it; for then the shepe masters and theire shepheardes could make no resistaunce to the contrarie."2 Sir Francis Bacon in his History of King Henry VII, speaking of the first statute against inclosures, says: "Another statute was made, of singular policy, for the population apparently, and, if it be thoroughly considered, for the soldiery and military forces of the realm. Inclosures at that time began to be more frequent, whereby arable land, which could not be manured without people and families, was turned into pasture which was easily rid by a few herdsmen ; and tenances for years, lives, and at will, whereupon much of the yeomanry lived, were turned into demesnes. This bred a decay of people." Yet notwithstanding this general testimony to a general depopulation, it is not at all certain that the total numbers were actually diminished. There was of course a considerable displacement of population; certain parts of the country probably had more people in the early fifteenth century than they 1 John Hales, Charge to Commissioners on Enclosures, 1549, Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials, II, ii, 358, 359. 2 W. S., Discourse of the Common Weal, 1549, p. 52. * Bacon, History of King Henry VII, ed. London, 1819, vol. V, pp. 61, 62. have ever had since. Nor is there any doubt as to the mass of disturbance of people, decay of towns, and consequent vagabondage and suffering. But on the other hand, nothing is more delusive than popular estimates of population at any time. Moreover, the inclosures and their resulting effects were by no means so extensive as we should infer had we no testimony other than the contemporary literature. Changes so fundamental, so complete a breach with the past, made an exaggerated impression on the minds of men, and they gave exaggerated testimony. A man who had seen a little hamlet which he had known to remain unchanged from his boyhood, almost suddenly reduced to solitude, its houses falling to decay, its open fields and pastures inclosed with hedges, sheep and cattle feeding in and out about the dismantled walls of its church and parsonage, and hearing in addition of similar troubles in other parts of the country, sprang naturally enough to the conclusion that the whole country was being immediately transformed. On the contrary, many parts of the country ✔ were almost untouched by the inclosures,1 the statutes for the reintroduction of tillage were to some extent effective, and the process of inclosure was gradual, extending, even for that part of the country which was affected, over more than a century. Thus new opportunities for gaining a livelihood may have arisen during the same period, to lessen the severity of the shock, and to make possible a continuance of the same or an increased population. In the absence of statistical sources of information the changes of total population are not really discoverable, and the most that can be asserted is that the conditions were ↓ not favorable to a rapid growth of population, as they became later in the reign of Elizabeth. Nor does the other charge of 1 See map in Ashley's English Economic History, vol. II, p. 304, and the sources from which the map is constructed in the previous references. But I am inclined to think this map somewhat fallacious, and the extent of the inclosures unduly minimized. |