1. In manus domine [sic] 1/2 acre of land of the tenement Marre. 2. " " 1-1/2 roods of the tenement Furell. 3. " " 1/2 acre land of the tenement Stanx. 4. " " 1 acre, 1 rood land of the tenement Gryne. 5. " " 3 roods land of the tenement Scot. 6. " " 3-1/2 roods land of the tenement Townsend. 7. " " 1/2 acre land of the tenement Byelaugh. 8. " " 1/2 acre land of the tenement Wheteloffe. 9. " " 1/2 acre land of the tenement Scutt. 10. " " 1/2 acre land of the tenement Coyefor. 11. " " 1 acre with the gravel pit. 12. " " 3 roods land of the tenement Nedwyn. 13. " " 1 acre land late of J. Cockerell. 14. " " 3 roods land of the tenement Gilbert. 15. " " 1 acre and 1 rood of the tenement Spotell. 16. " " 3 roods land of the tenement Spotell. 17. " " 3 roods land of the tenement Husbond. 18. " " 1 acre of the tenement Rodengh. 19. " " 1/2 acre land of the tenement Pymans. 20. " " 3 roods of the tenement Scutt. 21. " " 1 acre of decay of the tenement Spotell.
[442] R.O. _Aug. Off. Misc. Bks._, vol. cccxcix., f. 201 ff.
Here one has a field divided into twenty-one strips. Of these strips eighteen had at one time been in the occupation of separate individuals. The picture is just what we are accustomed to in mediæval surveys. It is illustrated sufficiently for our purpose by the map of part of Salford, on page 163. But some time before this survey of Walsingham was made a great change had taken place. The separate fragments had been taken out of the hands of the tenants and combined in the hands of the lord; the field is ready for conversion to pasture and for enclosure. How extremely profitable it might be to substitute a single large farm for a number of small holdings is proved by Manorial Rentals. Taking five manors in Wiltshire in the year 1568, one finds that the rents paid by the farmer of the demesne work out at 1s. 6d., 7-3/4d., 1s. 5-3/4d., 1s. 1-3/4d., 1s. 5-1/2d. per acre; those paid by the customary tenants at 7-1/2d., 5d., 1s. 0-3/4d., 5-3/4d., 5-3/4d. per acre.[443]
[443] The manors are South Newton, Winterbourne Basset, Knyghton, Donnington, and Estoverton and Phipheld (Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of Pembroke Manors_).
The difference is, in itself, enough to explain a decided movement towards an increase in the size of the unit of agriculture. But of course a powerful incentive to such procedure was supplied by the growth of pasture farming. In the days when the cultivation of the demesne depended on the labour of the tenants there was obviously bound to be a certain proportion between the land belonging to the former and the land held by the latter, a proportion which might be expressed by saying "no tenants, no demesne cultivation; no demesne cultivation, no income for the lord." But when tillage was replaced by pasture farming this economic rule of three ceased to work. On the one hand, the limit of size imposed on the demesne farm by considerations of management was removed or at any rate enormously extended, for many thousand sheep could be fed by two or three shepherds. On the other hand, the economic motive for preventing a decline in the number of small landholders was weakened, because there was little use for their labour on a pasture farm; while there was a great deal of use for their land, if only it could be cleared of existing rights and added to it. We have, in fact, an ordinary case of the depreciation of particular[444] kinds of human labour in comparison with capital, of the kind to which the modern world has become accustomed in the case of machinery--become accustomed and become callous.