A Short History of English Agriculture Part 10

[214] See above.

CHAPTER IX

1540-1600

PROGRESS AT LAST.--HOP-GROWING.--PROGRESS OF ENCLOSURE.--HARRISON'S 'DESCRIPTION'

The period we have now reached was one of steady growth in the value of land and its products. In 1543 Henry VIII, who had given away or squandered, in addition to the great treasure left him by his thrifty father, all the wealth obtained from the dissolution of the monasteries, debased the coinage in order to get more money into his insatiable hands, and prices went up in consequence. But there were other causes: the influx of precious metals from newly discovered America into Europe had commenced to make itself felt, and the population of the country began to grow steadily. Also, it must not be forgotten that the seasons, which in the early part of the century had been normal, were for the next sixty years frequently rainy and bad.

It is unnecessary to say that this must have largely helped to raise the price of corn. The average price of wheat from 1540-1583 was 13s.

10-1/2d. a quarter; from 1583-1702, 39s. 0-1/2d. Corn was still subject to extraordinary fluctuations: in 1557, Holinshed says before harvest wheat was 53s. 4d. a quarter, malt 44s. After harvest wheat was 5s., malt 6s. 8d., the former prices being due to a terrible drought in England. Oxen in the period 1583-1703 were worth 75s.

instead of under 1 in the period 1400-1540. Wool was from 9d. to 1s.

a lb. instead of about 3-1/2d., and all other farm products increased with these.[215] Hops were from 1540-1582 about 26s. 8d. a cwt., and from 1583-1700, 82s. 9-1/2d. In 1574 Reynold Scott published the first English treatise on hops,[216] in which he says, 'one man may well keep 2,000 hils, upon every hil well ordered you shall have 3 lb. of hoppes at the least, one hundred pounds of these hoppes are commonly worth 26s. 8d., one acre of ground and the third part of one man's labour with small cost beside, shall yield unto him that ordereth the same well, fortie marks yearly and that for ever,' an optimistic estimate that many growers to-day would like to see realized. 'In the preparation of a hop garden', says the same writer, 'if your ground be gra.s.se, it should be first sowen with hempe or beanes which maketh the ground melowe, destroyeth weedes, and leaveth the same in good season for this purpose.[217] At the end of Marche, repayre to some good garden to compound with the owner for choice rootes, which in some places will cost 5d. an hundredth. And now you must choose the biggest rootes you can find, such as are three or four inches about, and let every root be nine or ten inches long, and contain three joints.'

Holes were then to be dug at least 8 feet apart, one foot square, and one foot deep, and in each two or three roots planted and well hilled up. Tusser, however, recommended them much closer:

'Five foot from another each hillock should stand, As straight as a levelled line with the hand.

Let every hillock be four foot wide.

Three poles to a hillock, I pas not how long, Shall yield the more profit set deeplie and strong.'

Three or four poles were to be set to each hill 15 or 16 feet long, unless the ground was very rich, the poles 9 or 10 inches in circ.u.mference at the b.u.t.t, so as to last longer and stand the wind well. After they were put up, the ground round the poles was to be well rammed. Rushes or gra.s.s were used for tieing the hops. During the growth of the hops, not more than two or three bines were to be allowed to each pole; and after the first year the hills were to be gradually raised from the alleys between the rows until, according to the ill.u.s.trations in Scott's book, they were 3 or 4 feet high, the 'greater you make your hylles the more hoppes you shall have upon your poals'. When the time for picking came, the bines when cut were carried to a 'floore prepared for the purpose', apparently of hardened earth, where they were stripped into baskets, and Scott thought that 'it is not hurtfull greatly though the smaller leaves be mingled with the hoppes'. In wet weather the hops were to be stripped in the house. The fire for drying hops was of wood, and some dried their hops in the sun, both processes to us appearing very risky; as the first would be too quick, and the latter next to impossible in September in England. They were sometimes packed in barrels, as Tusser tells us, 'Some close them up drie in a hogshead or vat, yet canvas or sontage (coa.r.s.e cloth) is better than that.'

By this time England had largely changed from a corn-growing to a stock-raising country; Harrison, writing in the middle of Queen Elizabeth's reign, says, 'the soile of Britaine is more inclined to feeding and grazing than profitable for tillage and bearing of corne ... and such store is there of cattle in everie place that the fourth part of the land is scarcely manured for the provision of graine.' But this statement seems exaggerated. We know that by Harrison's time enclosures had affected but a small area, and the greater part of the cultivated land was in open arable fields. The yield of corn was now much greater than in the Middle Ages; rye or wheat well tilled and dressed now produced 15 to 20 bushels to the acre instead of 6 or 8, barley 36 bushels, oats 4 or 5 quarters[218], though in the north, which was still greatly behind the rest of England, crops were smaller. No doubt this was partly due to the much-abused enclosures: the industrious farmer could now do what he liked with his own, without hindrance from his lazy or unskilful neighbour. Tusser's preference for the 'several' field is very decided; comparing it with the 'champion' or common field he says:--

The countrie inclosed I praise the tother delighteth me not, There swineherd that keepeth the hog there neetherd with cur and his horne, There shepherd with whistle and dog be fence to the medowe and corne, There horse being tide on a balke is readie with theefe for to walke, Where all things in common doth reste corne field with the pasture and meade, Tho' common ye do for the best yet what doth it stand ye in steade?

More plentie of mutton and beefe corne b.u.t.ter and cheese of the best More wealth any where (to be briefe) more people, more handsome and prest (neat.) Where find ye? (go search any coaste) than there where enclosure is most.

More work for the labouring man as well in the towne as the fielde.

For commons these commoners crie inclosing they may not abide, Yet some be not able to bie a cow with her calf by her side.

Nor laie (intend) not to live by their wurke, But thievishly loiter and lurke.

What footpaths are made and how brode Annoiance too much to be borne, With horse and with cattle what rode is made thorowe erie man's come.

But the rich graziers boasted that they did not grow corn because they could buy it cheaper in the market; and they are said to have traded on the necessity of the poor farmer to sell at Michaelmas in order to pay his rent, and when they had got the corn into their hands they raised the price. The corn-dealers of the time were looked upon with dislike by every one; many of the dearths then so frequent, and nearly always caused by bad seasons, were ascribed to 'engrossers buying of corn and witholding it for sale'. By a statute of 1552 the freedom of internal corn trade was entirely suppressed, and no one could carry corn from one part of England to another without a licence, and any one who bought corn to sell it again was liable to two months' imprisonment and forfeited his corn. Although we shall see that this policy was reversed in the next century, the feeling against corn-dealers survived for many years and was loudly expressed during the Napoleonic war; indeed, we may doubt if it is extinct to-day.

Many of the fruits and garden produce, which had been neglected since the first Edward, had by now come into use again, 'not onlie among the poor commons, I meane of melons, pompions, gourds, cuc.u.mbers, radishes, skirets (probably a sort of carrot), parsneps, carrots, cabbages, navewes (turnip radishes (?)), turnips,[219] and all kinds of salad herbes, but also at the tables of delicate merchants, gentlemen, and the n.o.bilitie.'[220]

'Also we have most delicate apples, plummes, pears, walnuts, filberts, &c., and those of sundrie sorts, planted within fortie years past, in comparison of which most of the old trees are nothing worth: so have we no less store of strange fruite, as abricotes, almonds, peaches, figges, cornetrees (probably cornels) in n.o.blemen's orchards. I have seen capers, orenges, and lemmons, and heard of wild olives growing here, besides other strange trees.'[221]

As a proof of the growth of gra.s.s in proportion to tillage between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, Eden gives several examples,[222] of which the following are significant:--

Arable. Gra.s.s.

acres. acres.

1339. 18 messuages in Norfolk had 160 60 1354. a Norfolk manor 300 59 1395. 2 messuages in Warwicks.h.i.+re 400 60 1560. 2 messuages in Warwicks.h.i.+re 600 660 1567. a Norfolk estate 200 400 1569. " manor 60 60

'Our sheepe are very excellent for sweetness of flesh, and our woolles are preferred before those of Milesia and other places.'[223] So thought Harrison and many English landowners and farmers too, so that legislation was powerless to stop the spread of sheep farming. In 1517 a commission of inquiry instigated by Wolsey held inquisition on enclosures and the decay of tillage, and it seems to have been the only honest effort to stop the evil. It was to inquire what decays, conversions, and park enclosures had been made since 1489, but the result even of this attempt was small. In 1535 a fresh statute, 27 Hen. VIII, c. 22, stated that the Act limiting the number of sheep to be kept had only been observed on lands held of the king, whereon many houses had been rebuilt and much pasture reconverted to tillage; but on lands holden of other lords this was not the case, therefore the king was to have the moiety of the profits of such lands as had been converted from tillage to pasture since 4 Hen. VII until a proper house was built and the land returned to tillage; but the Act only applied to fourteen counties therein enumerated. The enclosing for sheep-runs still went on, however, often with ruthless selfishness; houses and towns.h.i.+ps were levelled, says Sir Thomas More, and nothing left standing except the church, which was turned into a sheep-house:

'The towns go down, the land decays, Of corn-fields plain lays, Great men maketh nowadays A sheepcot of the church',

said a contemporary ballad.

Latimer wrote, 'where there were a great many householders and inhabitants there is now but a shepherd and his dog.' 'I am sorie to report it,' says Harrison,[224] 'but most sorrowful of all to understand that men of great port and countenance are so far from suffering their farmers to have anie gaine at all that they themselves become graziers, butchers, tanners, sheepmasters, and woodmen, thereby to enrich themselves.' The Act against pulling down farmhouses was evaded by repairing one room for the use of a shepherd; a single furrow was driven across a field to prove it was still under the plough; to avoid holding illegal numbers of sheep flocks were held in the names of sons and servants.[225] The country swarmed with heaps of miserable paupers, 'st.u.r.dy and valiant' beggars, and thieves who, though hanged twenty at a time on a single gallows, still infested all the countryside, their numbers being swollen by the dissolution of the monasteries and the breaking up of the bands of retainers kept by the great n.o.bles.

Rents also were rising rapidly. Latimer's account of his father's farm is too well known to be again quoted; his opinions were shared by all the writers of the day. Sir William Forrest, about 1540, says that landlords now demand fourfold rents, so that the farmer has to raise his prices in proportion, and beef and mutton were so dear that a poor man could not 'bye a morsell'. 'Howe joyne they lordshyp to lordshyppe, manner to manner, ferme to ferme. How do the rych men, and especially such as be shepemongers, oppresse the king's people by devourynge their common pastures with the shepe so that the poore are not able to keepe a cowe, but are like to starve. And yet when was beef ever so dere or mutton, wool now 8s. a stone.

'Now', says another, later in the century, 'I can never get a horse shoed under 10d. or 12d., when I have also seen the common pryce was 6d. And cannot your neighbour remember that within these thirty years I could bye the best pigge or goose that I could lay my hand on for four pence which now costeth 12d., a good capon for 3d. or 4d., a hen for 2d., which now costeth me double and triple.'[226]

Parliament, of course, tried to regulate the price of food; an Act of 1532, 24 Hen. VIII, c. 3, ordained that beef and pork should be 1/2d.

a lb. and mutton and veal 5/8d. a lb. The decrease in the number of cows also received its attention; 2 and 3 Philip and Mary, c. 3, states that forasmuch of late years a great number of persons have fed in their pastures sheep and cattle with no regard to breeding, so that there was great scarcity of stock, therefore for every 60 sheep kept one milk cow shall be kept, and for every 120 sheep one calf shall be bred, and for every 10 head of horned cattle shall be kept one milk cow, and for every two cows so kept one calf shall be bred. The Act was to last seven years, but 13 Eliz. c. 25 made it perpetual.

In 1549 came the rising of Robert Kett in Norfolk, the last attempt of the English labourer to obtain redress of his wrongs by force of arms, though Kett himself belonged to the landlord cla.s.s and took the side of the people probably by accident. The pet.i.tion of grievances drawn up by his followers aimed at diminis.h.i.+ng the power of lords of manors as regards enclosures, the keeping of dove-cots, and other feudal wrongs. 'We pray', said the insurgents, 'that all bondmen may be made free, for G.o.d made all free with His precious blood-shedding.' The rebellion came to nothing, and some of the abuses at which it was aimed were dying a natural death, though enclosure often acted hardly on the poor man.

The manorial system went on steadily decaying, and by this time the demesne lands had much diminished in area on most manors. Many parcels had been sold to the new landlord cla.s.s, who had made their fortunes in the towns and, like most Englishmen, desired to become country gentlemen.

Much of the demesne had been sold in small lots to well-off tradesmen, and as the villeins had become copyholders a large part of the land was owned or occupied by yeomen or tenant farmers, who cultivated from 20 to 150 acres. Many of the labourers also owned or rented cottages with 4 or 5 acres attached to them. Such was the rural society at the end of the Tudor period. The progress of enclosures helped to destroy this, for the labourers gradually ceased to own or occupy land, farms increased in size, the owners.h.i.+p of land came to be more and more the privilege of the rich, and people flocked in increasing numbers to the towns.[227a] In five Norfolk manors in Elizabeth's time only from one-seventh to one-tenth was in demesne, and little of what was left was farmed by the lord, but let to farmers on leases.[227b] On some manors the demesne land lay in compact blocks near the manor house; on others it was in scattered strips of various size; in others it lay in blocks and strips. The following particulars of a manor in Norfolk give a good picture of an estate in 1586-8, the tenants on it, their rank, and the size of their holdings:--

Horstead with Staninghall, 2,746 acres.

The tenants with messuages in the village were:--

Acres.

1. J. Topliffe, gentleman 280 2. F. Woodhouse, Esquire 270 3. R. Ward, gentleman 265 4. H. Shreve 180 5. A. Pightling, widow 120 6. W. Rose's heirs 110 7. G. Berde 60 8. A. Thetford, gentleman 60 9. T. Pightling 60 10. R. Pightling 60 11. J. Rose 40 12. R. Lincoln 40 13. W. Jeckell 20 14. W. Bulwer 20 15. E. Newerby, gentleman 15 16. T. Barnard 12 17. E. Sparke 10

There were also 12 tenants without houses, holding from 1 to 20 acres; the demesne was 230 acres; there were two glebes containing 84 acres, and town lands of 7 acres. The waste amounted to 350 acres, which by 1599 had all disappeared.

On this manor the houses were not collected together in a village as usual in most parts of England, but scattered about the estate. In two other manors the amount of waste remaining at this period was very small, but in three others little had been 'approved' and much consequently remained; most of the 'approvements', where made, seem to have been of long standing, and all the enclosures made were for tillage, not for gra.s.s as we should expect. The 350 acres of waste that remained at Horstead in 1586-8 was enclosed in 1599 by agreement between the lords of the manor and the tenants on the following terms:--

1. Lords to take 80 acres in severalty.

2. Lords to reserve all rights to treasure trove, minerals, waifs, &c., with right of entry to take the same.

3. All rights of pasture, shack, and foldage were to be extinguished on all lands in the village.

4. The tenants were to pay an annual quit rent of 7 14s. 5d.

for their shares of the common.

Before a man enclosed he consolidated his holding by exchange, so as to bring it into a compact parcel instead of scattered strips, a very lengthy process; then he ploughed up the bounds between the strips; after which he changed the direction of the ploughing, ploughing the land crossways, a very necessary change, as it had all been ploughed lengthways for centuries; and lastly he erected his fences: the bounds of the strips, however, were sometimes left to show which were freehold and which copyhold. On the other hand, there were exceptions to the curtailment of the demesne: on an Oxfords.h.i.+re manor of the sixteenth century the greater part of the 64 yard-lands of which it consisted had by then pa.s.sed from the possession of the peasants to the private use of the lord of the manor.[228] To each yard-land belonged a house and farmyard, 24 to 28-3/4 acres of arable land, a share in the commonable meadows which for each occupier came to some 8 acres, also the right to turn out 8 oxen or cows, or 6 horses and 40 sheep on to the common pasture. Probably, as in other manors in ancient times, each occupier had a right to as much firewood as was necessary, and timber for building purposes and fences. The arable land lay in numerous small plots of half an acre each and less, mingled together in a state of great confusion, and was farmed on the four-field system--wheat, beans, oats, fallow--though 200 years before the three-field system had been most common in the district. Many of the common arable fields evidently often contained, in those days of poor cultivation and inefficient drainage, patches of boggy and poor land which were left uncultivated.[229] In the rolls of the Manor of Scotter in Lincolns.h.i.+re, in the early part of the sixteenth century, no one was to allow his horses to depasture in the arable fields unless they were tethered on these bad spots to prevent them wandering into the growing corn.[230] Many of the other regulations of this manor throw a flood of light on the farming of the day. In 1557 it was ordered that no man should drive his cattle unyoked through the corn-field under a penalty of 3s. 4d. Every man shall keep a sufficient fence against his neighbour under the same penalty. No man shall make a footpath over the corn-field, the penalty for so doing being 4d. Every one shall both ring and yoke their swine before S.

Ellen's Day (probably May 3), under a penalty of 6s. 8d., the custom of yoking swine to prevent them breaking fences being common until recent times. It was the custom in some manors to sow peas in a plot especially set apart for the poor. Another rule was that no one should bake or brew by night for fear of burning down the flimsy houses and buildings. The penalty for ploughing up the balks which divided the strips, or meere (marc) furrows as they were called in Lincolns.h.i.+re, was 2d., a very light one for so serious an offence. In 1565 a penalty of 10s. was imposed on Thomas Dawson for breaking his hemp, i.e.

separating the fibre from the bark in his large open chimney on winter nights, a habit which the manor courts severely punished owing to the risk of fire, for hemp refuse is very inflammable. It 1578 it was laid down that every one was to sow the outside portion of their arable lands, and not leave it waste for weeds to the damage of his neighbours; and that those who were too poor to keep sheep should not gather wool before 8 o'clock in the morning, in reference to the custom of allowing the poor to pick refuse wool found on bushes and thorns, and this rule was to prevent them tearing wool from the sheep at night under that pretext. No man was to keep any beasts apart from the herdsman, for if the herdsman did not know the animals he could not tell them from strays. Every one was to sweep their chimney four times a year, for fear of sparks falling on the thatch. No man was to suffer the nests of crows or magpies in his ground, but pull them down before May Day. In the meadows, before each man began to mow his gra.s.s he was to mark the exact limits of his own land with 'wadsticks' or tall rods, so that there could be no mistake as to boundaries. The health of the community and of the live stock also received attention: in 1583 one Pattynson was fined 1s. for allowing a 'scabbed' horse to go on the common; dead cattle were to be buried the day after death, and all unwholesome meat was to be buried.

Harrison praises the farmer of his day highly: 'the soyle is even now in these oure dayes growne to be much more fruitfulle; the cause is that our country men are grown more skilful and careful throwe recompense of gayne.' He was also doing well by means of his skill and care; and in spite of the raising of rents by the much-abused landlords; for in former times 'for all their frugality they were scarcely able to live and pay their rents on rent day without selling a cow or a horse'. Such also used to be their poverty, that if a farmer went to the alehouse, 'a thing greatly used in those days,' and there, 'in a braverie to show what store he had, did caste downe his purse and therein a n.o.ble or 6 s.h.i.+llings in silver unto them, it was very likely that all the rest could not lay downe so much against it.'

And In Henry's time, though rents of 4 had increased to 40, 50, or 100, yet the farmer generally had at the end of his term saved six or seven years' rent, besides a 'fair garnish of pewter on his cupboard', and odd vessels, also 'three or four feather beds, so manie coverlids and carpets of tapestry, a silver salt, a bowle for wine, and a dozzen of spoones to furnish up the sute'. His food consisted princ.i.p.ally of beef, and 'such food as the butcher selleth', mutton, veal, lamb, pork, besides souse, brawn, bacon, fruit, fruit pies, cheese, b.u.t.ter, and eggs.[231] In feasting, the husbandman or farmer exceeded, especially at bridals, purifications of women, and such other meetings, where 'it is incredible to tell what meat is consumed and spent'. But, besides these, there were many poorer farmers who lived at home 'with hard and pinching diet'. Wheaten bread was at this time a luxury confined to the gentility, the farmer's loaf, according to Tusser, was sometimes wheat, sometimes rye, sometimes mastlin, a mixture of wheat and rye, though the poorer farmer on uninclosed land ate bread made of beans.

The poor ate bread of rye or barley, and in time of dearth of beans, peas, and oats, and sometimes acorns.[232] According to Tusser, the labourer was allowed roast meat twice a week,

'Good plowmen looke weekly of custom and right, For roast meate on Sundaies, and Thursdaies at night';