The Enclosures in England An Economic Reconstruction

Excerpt

INTRODUCTION

The enclosure movement—the process by which the common-field system was broken down and replaced by a system of unrestricted private use—involved economic and social changes which make it one of the important subjects in English economic history. When it began, the arable fields of a community lay divided in a multitude of strips separated from each other only by borders of unplowed turf. Each landholder was in possession of a number of these strips, widely separated from each other, and scattered all over the open fields, so that he had a share in each of the various grades of land.[] But his private use of the land was restricted to the period when it was being prepared for crop or was under crop. After harvest the land was grazed in common by the village flocks; and each year a half or a third of the land was not plowed at all, but lay fallow and formed part of the common pasture. Under this system there was no opportunity for individual initiative in varying the rotation of crops or the dates of plowing and seed time; the use of the land in common for a part of the time restricted its use even during the time when it was not in common. The process by which this system was replaced by modern private ownership with unrestricted individual use is called the enclosure movement, because it involved the rearrangement of holdings into separate, compact plots, divided from each other by enclosing hedges and ditches. The most notable feature of this process is the conversion of the open fields into sheep pasture. This involved the eviction of the tenants who had been engaged in cultivating these fields and the amalgamation of many holdings of arable to form a few large enclosures for sheep. The enclosure movement was not merely the displacement of one system of tillage by another system of tillage; it involved the temporary displacement of tillage itself in favor of grazing.

In this monograph two things are undertaken: first, an analysis of the usually accepted version of the enclosure movement in the light of contemporary evidence; and, secondly, the presentation of another account of the nature and causes of the movement, consistent with itself and with the available evidence. The popular account of the enclosure movement turns upon a supposed advance in the price of wool, due to the expansion of the woollen industry in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Landlords at this period (we are told) were increasingly eager for pecuniary gain and, because of the greater profit to be made from grazing, were willing to evict the tenants on their land and convert the arable fields to sheep pasture. About the end of the sixteenth century, it is said, this first enclosure movement came to an end, for there are evidences of the reconversion of pastures formerly laid to grass. An inquiry into the evidence shows that the price of wool fell during the fifteenth century and failed to rise as rapidly as that of wheat during the sixteenth century. Moreover, the conversion of arable land to pasture did not cease when the contrary process set in, but continued throughout the seventeenth century with apparently unabated vigor. These facts make it impossible to accept the current theory of the enclosure movement. There is, on the other hand, abundant evidence that the fertility of much of the common-field land had been exhausted by centuries of cultivation. Some of it was allowed to run to waste; some was laid to grass, enclosed, and used as pasture. Productivity was gradually restored after some years of rest, and it became possible to resume cultivation....