Austrey
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THE IMPACT OF ENCLOSURE THE IMPACT OF ENCLOSURE Phase 1 & 2 Note
from web-master - I am trying to get all the historic data up on the site before
Xmas 02 - to do this I am having to cut rough and ready sections of documents -
I will go back and re-organise more effectively when I have time. If anyone
wants to help with this process it would be most welcome - I am up to my
eyeballs in information. Pete Y. Changes in the Farming Economy - Between 1570 and 1620 there was a particularly
vigorous spate of enclosure in the midlands accompanying rapid population
increases, land sales and conversions and the burgeoning growth of market towns.
During these decades somewhere between a quarter and a third of the total
landed acreage of the kingdom changed hands as a result of Henry VIII's
revenue-raising dissolution of the monasteries. The glut of land on the market
accentuated a process that had already begun: the conversion of arable field
strips to pasture runs, or enclosures.
New farming technology facilitated both the increase in population and
the expansion of the marketing economy. Over the course of the 16th and 17th
centuries the publication of practical farming manuals for husbandmen, by
writers like John Fitzherbert (1523),
Thomas Tusser (1557), and Gervase
Markham (1614) presented an accumulated body of new farming lore in anecdote
and verse. Midland farmers are
credited with three major farming innovations in late Tudor times: the use of
marl and manure to improve soil fertility, the ‘floating’ of water meadows
and the adoption of convertible husbandry.
Frequent references to marlpits
and muckheaps in glebe terriers and
probate inventories certainly suggests that husbandmen were following Master
Fitzherbert's advice to increase soil fertility, and frequent references to
stocks of winter feed recorded in the inventories after 1550 suggest that cattle
were being kept through the winter instead of being slaughtered. ‘Hay’,
or stock feed is frequently listed among the crops and animals in Austrey’s
mixed-farming inventories. The technique of flooding meadows with water to
improve soil fertility seems to have been practised in this part of the midlands
from the mid 1500s. An Appleby manorial court presentment from 1552 for example describes the preparation for
flooding the meadows between Appleby and Measham where John Barwell, the
principal witness, declares on oath that his father, ‘deched and duge 60
chen, the gerth of the medow’ at Measham.
Later evidence suggests that the meadows in Austrey were also ditched and
flooded. George Marshall refers to
an interview with George Barwell of Shuttington who in 1790 recalls that: in the parish of Austrey where he was born it has been the custom ever since he can remember (sixty years) to throw the rich waters which are collected in rainy seasons on the common fields lying on the side of the bill above the village, over the meadows which are below it, by means of floodgates and floating trenches.[sic] There is also evidence of ‘convertible’ or
‘up and down’ husbandry.– the traditional
method of rotating arable field strips and pasture leys described by
Kerridge and other agricultural historians. Early references to ‘meadow
greens’ and ‘pasture leys’ in local terriers,deeds and probate wills, seems to
indicate that there was a great deal of flexibility in open-field management.
According to Marshall, an 18th century writer, well placed to
learn of such matters, the midland farmers avoided ploughing up pasture leys,
believing that tillage destroyed the ‘turf’
or natural grasses. This
traditional respect for ‘mighty turf’
meant, in effect, that pasture leys were only put down to arable in times of
dire necessity. Notes
and Sources According
to Lawrence Stone, nation-wide land sales increased two and a half times from
the 1560s to the 1610s, after which the glut on the land market subsided:
‘Social Mobility in England, 1500-1700’, Past
and Present, 33 (1966), 33. John
Fitzherbert’s Book of Husbandry
(London, 1523) was reprinted in 20 editions before 1700; Thomas Tusser’s, A
Hundreth Good Pointes of Husbandrie, 1557 and the expanded edition, Five
Hundreth Pointes of Good Husbandrie (1573) ed. By W. Payne and S.J. Hertage
(London, 1878) and Gervase Markham, Cheap
and Good Husbandry (London, 1614) 1552
Presentment in L.R.O. Depositions regarding ‘brode medow forde’, DE 431529; For further discussion on farming
practises see: R. Trow Smith, A History of
British Livestock Husbandry (London, 1957) I, pp. 115-17; E. Kerridge, The
Farmers of Old England (London, 1973), pp. 110-11, and Agricultural
Revolution, pg. 107 Austrey
meadows described in Marshall, Rural
Economy I, pp. 273-6., II pg. 39. George Barwell of Shuttington may well
have been a descendant of old John Barwell of Measham, (cited earlier) who also
describes techniques for ‘floating’ meadows. Cf. Marshall's description of
rural conditions in the 1780s, the neglected hayricks, the atrocious roads and
the pervasive ‘tameness ... a kind of still life’ throughout the region: Rural Economy I, pg. 8. Piecemeal
Enclosure in Austrey and the surrounding villages
The entrenched inertia of common-field agriculture in the
midlands has been blamed upon the close regulations of the manor courts and the
customary practice of granting leases for three lives. The farming evidence from
the villages around Austrey suggests a gradual, piecemeal adoption of
improved farming methods rather than any dramatic changes. Enclosure is the
most visible sign of change in the region's farming economy.
Chronology broadly divides the process into four main phases or bursts of
activity, marking a gradual shift from arable to pasture farming between 1500
and 1800. The process complemented the improved farming techniques already
mentioned. Despite some
reservations about the use of enclosure as a yardstick of agricultural progress
- it was after all only one of a number of farming innovations in the period –
it serves as a powerful symbol of agrarian change.
Enclosure provides a reliable measure of the penetration and spread of
improved farming technology, each phase producing its own harvest of townships
converting from arable to pasture farming. Notes and References: Midland
Enclosure has been dealt with at length by a succession of agricultural
historians like G. Slater, E.C.K. Gonner, H.L. Gray, Joan Thirsk etc. For a
summary see J.A. Yelling’s Common Field
and Enclosure in England, 1450-1850 (London, 1977). Phase
1 Ancient Enclosure
(pre 1500) Croxall
(D) DMV
Ambion (L) DMV
Weston (L) DMV
Stonydelph (W) Stretton
(D
Atterton (L) DMV
Witherley (L)
Boden Hall (W) Willesley
(D)
Gopsall (L) DMV
Amington (W) DMV
Alvecote ?(W) Haselour
(S) DMV
Mythe (L)
Stretford (W) DMV
Dordon
? (W) Oakley
(S) DMV
Naneby (L) DMV
Bolehall (W) DMV
Freasley? (W) Statfold
(S) DMV
Thorpe (L)
DMV
Kingswood (W) DMV
Wilnecote ? (W) Syerscote
(S) DMV
Wellsbrough (L) DMV
Perecrest
(W) DMV KEY DMV Deserted medieval village D Derbyshire L Leicestershire S Staffordshire
W Warwickshire The
first phase of enclosure, up to around 1550 was a continuation of the monastic depopulations of the early medieval
period when abandoned or depopulated villages were converted to sheep walks.
Documentary sources yield little information about these early
enclosures. However the discovery
of a growing number of deserted village sites, surrounded by the
tell-tale ridges indicating direct conversion to pasture, is evidence of the
abandonment of a substantial amount of marginal arable land before 1500.
At least twenty-two of the eighty townships in the area around Austrey
were either entirely or partially depopulated by this date. Some desertions, like that of Weston in
Leicestershire, which stood on the site of a monastic grange belonging to the
Cistercian abbey of Merevale, can be attributed to deliberate decisions by
monastic landowners to convert arable to sheep pasture.
Others, like Ambion, near Market Bosworth, and Kingswood, Boden
Hall and Stretford on Watling Street, were almost certainly caused by
mid 14th-century outbreaks of bubonic plague.
Generally, it seems that most early enclosures in the eastern part of the
region were associated with the conversions of arable holdings to estate pasture
farms, while those in the west resulted from piecemeal asserting or reclamation
of waste ground. Early Tudor enclosures are recorded in Chancery
returns, the so-called ‘Domesday of inclosures’ compiled by Henry
VIII’s commissioners in 1517-1518 and followed up by a supplementary survey in
1549 in an attempt to enforce statutes against engrossing and enclosure. The
extent of this pioneer conversion is disguised by the comparatively small
acreages recorded. The
commissioners' brief, to confine their investigations to enclosures since 1488,
probably explains why their findings conflict with Fitzherbert's account of
wholesale enclosure in the south Staffordshire-Derbyshire border region. Further
investigations in north Warwickshire, a comparatively well recorded area which
provides detailed returns for the 1517-18 and 1549 inquisitions, also suggest
that the commissioners underestimated the extent of conversion.
The Warwickshire return, for example, fails to mention any of the
deserted villages on Watling Street shown on Dugdale’s 1656 map of Hemlingford
Hundred, although all of these villages were almost certainly abandoned by 1500.
However .the 1517- 1518 return does list some of the conversions of manorial
holdings into pastoral leases. At Shuttington for instance the enclosure
commissioners report that in 1514 the monastery of Great Malvern had enclosed
forty acres of arable and depopulated six messuages and two cottages.
At nearby Amington, John de Clinton is said to have converted the
capital messuage at Bolehall and its attached 200 acres of arable to
pasture. Similarly at Pooley,
near Polesworth, Sir Thomas Cokeyn had converted 140 acres of arable.
Profit-hungry landlords probably caused or hastened desertions at Statfold,
Syerscote and Thorpe Constantine near Tamworth, and at Elford,
Oakley and Croxall in the lower Mease valley. The increase in severally holdings had important
repercussions for the local farmers. In some cases newly enclosed lands could be
used as bases for further incursions on the common field arable.
The mere existence of these islands of non-communal farmland producing
wool and other marketable produce encouraged the more ambitious landlords and
tenants to follow suit. Notes
and References I.S. Leadam (ed), The Domesday of
Inclosures, 1517-18, 2 vols. London, (1897),I. pp 226-42; 389-435; Thomas,
‘The enclosure of Open Fields and Commons in Staffordshire’, Staffs. Hist.
Society 1931, pp 60-99. Acreages for the awards in W.E. Cox, A
Domesday of English Enclosure Acts and Awards (Oxford, 1978). Dugdale’s
Map of Hemlingford Hundred in 1st edition of Antiquities
of Warwickshire (London, 1656), pp 636-7. D.M. Palliser, ‘A Thousand
Years of Staffordshire: Man and Landscape, 913-1973’ North Staffordshire
Journal of Field Studies, xiv (1974), pg 25; John Goodacre, in his thesis on
Lutterworth (pg 122) suggests that many
of the earlier desrted villages may have been conversions of abandoned townships
by mense lords. Joseph Lee confirms pre 1653
enclosures at Shenton, Coton, Carlton, Twycross and Bilston, Vindication
of a Regulated Enclosure (London, 1656) pg 5. Phase 2 Piecemeal
Enclosure, 1570-1650
Bonehill ? (S)
Coton (L)
Nailstone (L) Barton (L)
Boswortb (L)
Packington (L) Bilston (L)
Newton Burgoland
Shenton (L) Carlton (L)
Normanton (L)
Twycross (L) Between
1570 and 1650 the gradual encroachment upon the commons and open fields
continued. Although common field farming often survived
alongside farming in severally until a comparatively late date, these gradual
depletions were responsible for a silent transformation of the farming
landscape. Evidence from a wide
range of sources - family papers, popular pamphlets, sermons, terriers and
inquisitions - reveals the extent of this piecemeal enclosure. By 1650, for
example, a further sixteen townships (20 per cent of those listed for 1500) had
joined the ranks of completely enclosed townships in the region around Austrey.
Unlike the earlier monastic enclosures, which invariably resulted from a
single landowner's decision to enclose an entire manor or township, these later
enclosures were the result of a series of local initiatives to convert or
‘sever’ farmland from the open fields.
Forced enclosures led to the famous riot at Cotesbach in 1607,
where according to John Nichols, some 5,000 ‘tumultuous persons
…violently cut and broke down hedges, filled ditches and laid open…
enclosures’. At least nine of
the 71 listed Leicestershire townships which suffered enclosure or severance
between 1578 and 1607 were in the survey area around Austrey. These enclosures
were typically carried out by mesne lords or wealthy tenants with the support or acquiescence of
‘permissive’ local landowners. Those
listed in the returns were often accused of converting farm-sized holdings.
At Orton-on-the-Hill, Robert Bradshaw, the lord of the manor, is
reported to have enclosed 30 acres. At
Newton, a yeoman converted 36 acres from tillage to pasture and four
other tenants, between them, a further 39 acres. A £40 fine was levied upon
Thomas Croxall of Norton who had enclosed twenty acres of arable ‘for
graseing and fatting of cattle’ in 1606, an offence held contrary to the
law, ‘the nature of the soil’ and ‘the course of husbandry pursued
at Norton’. The indictments seem to suggest that less blatant
conversions made by mutual agreements or exchanges might have gone unreported to
the commissioners. This is probably
why Appleby was omitted from the Leicestershire returns despite the fact that
the farmers there had been exchanging field strips ‘without written
instruments’ from time immemorial [John Nichols, IV, pg 131]. A long
tradition of piecemeal enclosure direct from the waste seems to have ensured a
more peaceful transformation in the parishes lying immediately to the west of
Austrey, - also conspicuously
absent from returns to the1607 inquiry. The 1570-1650 enclosures were caused by several
factors. One was undoubtedly the increased amount of land on the market as a
result of the Dissolution which provided ripe opportunities for speculators and
improvers. Another was the continuing high price of grain, which encouraged
agricultural innovation to increase crop yields. The profitability of livestock no doubt encouraged pasture
farming, but there does not appear to have been an automatic link between market
demand and enclosure. The repeal of
anti-enclosure legislation in 1593 might have been taken as a signal for further
pasture conversion. A series of
poor grain harvests in the mid -1590s reversed the effect of the legislation as
Parliament made desperate attempts to promote arable farming. Indeed one of the
most persistent themes of late sixteenth and early seventeenth-century farming
lore is the interdependence of pasture and tillage. The cautious smallholder did well to heed Fitzherbert's
warning that: An
housebande can not well thryue by his corne without he haue other cattell, nor
by his cattell without corne. For
els he shall be a byer, a borower, or a beggare...[John Fitzherbert, 1523] The widespread belief that enclosure caused
depopulation and food shortages in dearth years, stirred an angry backlash
against further encroachments upon the commons after 1650.
The anti-enclosure campaign, fed by pamphlets and petitions to
Parliament, achieved a minor victory when Edward Whalley, Cromwell's
Major-General for the Midlands, introduced a final anti-enclosure bill into the
Commons. Although Whalley's proposals were rejected by Parliament (ever wary of
threats to freehold property) the furore it generated may have helped to arrest
the pace of change and channel it in a new direction.
This might explain why the period from 1650 to 1748, the date of its
first Parliamentary enclosure award, was one of consolidation rather than
confrontation. Notes
and References Nichols refers to enclosure riots
at Cotesbach in volume IV, pg 148 cf. map of enclosed and severed townships in
L.A. Parker, ‘The Depopulation Returns for Leicestershire in 1607’, Trans.
Leics. Archaeological Society, xxiii (1947). Other references to enclosed
townships in L.A. Parker, Enclosure in
Leicestershire, 1485-1607 (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of London,
1948) pp, 145, 232. See W.G. Hoskins, ‘Harvest
Fluctuations and English Economic History, 1480-1619’, AGHR, xii (1964), pg. 38; Anxiety about grain shortages was
particularly acute in the western half of the survey region where animal
husbandry well established. For
example, in 1631 famine raised grain prices at Derby to 80s a quarter: R.C. Cox,
Three-Centuries,of Derbyshire Annals as
illustrated by the Record of Quarter Sessions, (London, 1870) II-189-90,
hereafter Derbys. Annals. The quote from
Master [John] Fitzherbert’s Book of Husbandry ed. W.W. Skeat (London,
1882) pg 42. Whalley's 'Bill for Improvement
of Waste-Grounds, and Regulating of Commons and Commonable Lands and Preventing
Depopulation, in Journal of the House of
Commons, VII, pg 470. Cf. W.E. Tate, The
English Village Community and Enclosure Movements (London, 1967), 127; E.M.
Leonard. ‘The Inclosure of Common Fields in the Seventeenth Century’, Trans.
Royal Historical Society, New Series, xix (1905), pg. 130. The
Civil War and Interregnum
heightened the debate on enclosure with the most vehement supporters and the
most resolute detractors of improved farming, waging a war of accusations and
counter-accusations in print. Rich
graziers and poor labourers were both represented. Walter Blith, the Warwickshire yeoman who championed
convertible husbandry, was one of a new breed of wealthy graziers whose fortunes
rested on enclosed pasture. Parson Moore of Knaptoft in Leicestershire, who
railed enthusiastically against this spreading evil, ‘such as doe unpeople
towns and uncorne fields’, took the part of those threatened with
dispossession. Thus, while Blith
attacked the 'mouldy old-leavened husbandmen’, the cautious smallholder
unable or unwilling to enclose, Moore fired his broadside against the improvers,
those ‘make beggars that care not how many beggars they make so themselves
may be gentlemen’. Moore's
reference to 'make beggars' was plainly an allusion to the rising yeomanry.
Yet despite their obvious differences, both protagonists recognised a
common set of social assumptions. Neither
embraced the sorts of radical changes advocated by groups like the Levellers and
the Diggers. Blith himself avowed
that be was ‘not of the Digger’s minde’, declaring in favour of ‘as
much enclosure as shall admit of no depopulation’, justifying it as a
means of putting the poor to work and thereby relieving the burden on parish
funds. Moore also upheld the status quo in emphasising the threat of
depopulation, poverty and social disorder that went with the decay of tillage. Depopulation
was a particularly pressing fear in this period because of the widespread belief
that enclosure led to evictions and corn scarcities. John Lee's attempt to
demonstrate that regulated enclosure did not necessarily lead to depopulation
puts these comments into sharper focus. His argument rested upon the compilation
of a list of towns that had recently been enclosed without depopulation.
The fact that six of the thirteen townships cited by Lee to prove his
point about enclosure were in the vicinity of Market Bosworth (rather than near
his native Catthorpe) certainly seems to suggest that enclosure might have had a
less traumatic impact on most of the mixed-farming parishes in the region. Comparative analysis of population figures reveals
that generally enclosing parishes increased their population by slightly less
than those that remained “open”. But
the figures for individual townships suggests that there were quite wide
variations between them: clearly, other factors apart from enclosure were
involved. Some townships, like Packington,
almost doubled in size despite enclosure. Many “unenclosed” parishes
(including Austrey) were partly enclosed and yet managed to record substantial
population increases, while others, like Shackerstone,
experienced a net loss of population even without enclosure.
Clearly, factors such as the availability of subsidiary work, the system
of poor relief and the decisions of manorial landlords, were involved.
Its possible also, that certain features peculiar to mixed-farming
parishes, such as the comparative ease of changing from cropping to pasture,
cushioned the impact of enclosure on food supply, making it much less of a
threat to the poor. Notes
and References Walter Blith, The
English Improver (London, 1649) and, The
English Improver Improved (London, 1652), unpaginated; John Moore's sermon
at Lutterworth, ‘The Crying Sin of England of Not Careing for the Poor’
(London, 1653) printed in Nichols IV, pp. 83-4; J. Moore. A
Scripture Word Against Inclosure (London, 1656), pg. 84. The Digger’s Manifesto, ‘The
True Leveller’s Standard Advanced’ (April, 1649) in Winstanley, The Law of Freedom and Other Writings, ed. Christopher
Hill (Cambridge, 1983) pp 77-95. See also an open letter from the ‘Diggers of
Warwickshire to all other Diggers’ in J.O. Halliwell, The Marriage of Wit and Wisdom, An Ancient Interlude (London, 1846),
pp 140-141; Blith, ‘An Epistle to the Industrious Reader’ and ‘Epistle to
the Cottager, Labourer or Meanest Cottager’ in Improver Improved. John Lee’s response in his Vindication,
pg 5; C.T. Smith, VCH Leics III, pg 144. I
am particularly indebted to John Goodacre of Ashby Parva for these observations
on enclosure. |
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