Thirdly, there was, during one period in the sixteenth century, a law specially guarding the corn-growing districts from enclosure, from which other districts were exempt.
The Statute 7 Henry VIII., c. 1, was the Depopulation Act in force for the 20 years 1516–1536. It derives special importance from the Inquisition into Enclosures which followed its enactment, in 1517. It applies only to parishes “Whereof the more part was or were used and occupied to tillage and husbandrie”; and it required the land to be tilled “after the maner and usage of the countrey where the seyd land lyeth.” This restriction drops out of the next Depopulation Act, 27 Henry VIII., c. 22, passed in the year 1536.
Map of England and Wales showing Leyland’s route, with: Moor, Fen, Marsh, Forest or Heath. Enclosed. Champion. Cultivated and probably open. Scale 1:5,000,000 or 1 inch = 79 Stat. miles.]
In the year 1536 Leland, the King’s Antiquary, began his Itinerary, which lasted till 1542. Whether in consequence of special instructions or not, he almost everywhere notes the condition of the country he traverses with regard to enclosure. A summary of his observations is shown in the form of a map; Devon, Cornwall, West Somerset, South Wales, Hereford, Worcester, the north-west of Warwick, South Lancashire, the country round Southampton, and near Hampton Court, with parts of Yorkshire, are shown to be the most enclosed districts which are described; and the districts described by Leland as champaign are those which were later largely enclosed by Act of Parliament.
The general movement of agricultural progress, it may safely be assumed, up to Leland’s time, was from the south-east of England northwards and westwards. The extreme south-east corner was certainly very early enclosed, as one would naturally expect, but we also find remote western districts, where one would naturally expect to find old customs linger comparatively late, precede the central districts in the abandonment of the “village community,” by many years.[84]
[84] How long the enclosure of certain western counties preceded the enclosure of the east midlands, is shown by comparing the two following extracts. Of the former, Joseph Lee, in “A Plea for Regulated Inclosure,” published 1656, asks, “Are not many places in England, Essex, Hereford, Devonshire, Shropshire, Worcester, wholly enclosed?” (p. 31). Of the latter the “General Report on Enclosures,” published 152 years later, “A village of farmers and labourers surrounding a church and environed by three or four and in a few cases by five open fields, form the spectacle of Cambridge, Huntingdon, and Northampton shires, as much as on the Loire and on the plains of Moscow” (p. 25).