[142] Ballard, Domesday, Antiquary Series, p. 209.

[143] Walter of Henley, Royal Historical Society, p. 75.

[144] Cullum, Hawsted, 1784 ed., p. 182.

[145] State of the Poor, i. 15.

[146] Thorold Rogers, History of Agriculture and Prices, i. 32.

[147] See Knights Hospitallers in England, Camden Society, Introduction.

[148] Thorold Rogers, op. cit. i. 66.

CHAPTER V

THE BREAK-UP OF THE MANOR.—­SPREAD OF LEASES.—­THE PEASANTS’ REVOLT.—­FURTHER ATTEMPTS TO REGULATE WAGES.—­A HARVEST HOME.—­ BEGINNING OF THE CORN LAWS.—­SOME SURREY MANORS

We have seen that the landlords’ profits were seriously diminished by the Black Death, and they cast about them for new ways of increasing their incomes.  Arable land had been until now largely in excess of pasture, the cultivation of corn was the chief object of agriculture, bread forming a much larger proportion of men’s diet than now.  This began to change.  Much of the land was laid down to grass, and there was a steady increase in sheep farming; thus commenced that revolution in farming which in the sixteenth century led Harrison to say that England was mainly a stock-raising country.  The lords also let a considerable amount of their demesne land on leases for years.  ’Then began the times to alter’ says Smyth of the Lord Berkeley of the end of the fourteenth century, ’and hee with them, and he began to tack other men’s cattle on his pasture by the week, month, and quarter, and to sell his meadow grounds by the acre.  And in the time of Henry IV still more and more was let, and in succeeding times.  As for the days’ works of the copyhold tenants, they also were turned into money.’[149] Such leases had been used long before this, but this is the date of their great increase.  In the thirteenth century a lease of 2 acres of arable land in Nowton, Suffolk, let the land at 6d. an acre per annum for a term of six years.[150] It contains no clauses about cultivation; the landlord warrants the said 2 acres to the tenant, and the tenant agrees to give them up at the end of the term freely and peaceably.  The deed was indented, sealed, and witnessed by several persons.  The impoverished landlords also let much of their land on stock and land leases.  The custom of stocking the tenants’ land was a very ancient one:  the lord had always found the oxen for the plough teams of the villeins.  In the leases of the manors of S. Paul’s in the twelfth century the tenant for life received stock both live and dead, which when he entered was carefully enumerated in the lease, and at the end of the tenancy he had to leave behind the same quantity.[151] It was a common practice also, before the Black Death, for the lord to let out cows and sheep at so much per head per annum.[152] The stock and land lease therefore was no novelty.