[374] _e.g._ at Acklington (_Northumberland County History_, vol. v.), of which Clarkson the surveyor writes: "Neither is there any demaine lands or demaine meadows, but all is occupied together in husbandry"; at Birling (_ibid._): "There is no demaine land or meadow, with all their husbandlands and meadows appertaining to the same"; apparently also at High Buston. Compare Vinogradoff, _Villainage in England_, p. 316: "Villages without a manorial demesne ... are found ... where the power of the lord was more a political than an economical one" (Norfolk and Suffolk, Lincoln, Northumberland, Westmoreland, &c.). For a manor where the demesne is kept in the hand of the lord in 1568 for the reason given above, see Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of Pembroke Manors_, Manor of Washerne.
[375] _Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History_, pp. 153-154.
[376] Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of Lands of William, First Earl of Pembroke_.
From the allusions made by contemporaries to the large farmer as one of the mainsprings of the changes of the period, one is disposed to look first at the demesne for the beginning of capitalist agriculture. Whether, however, the method of cultivating the demesne differed much from the cultivation of the customary holdings depended to a considerable extent upon the terms on which it was leased, and, in particular, upon whether it passed into the control of a single considerable tenant. It would be a mistake to think that the economic relationships which were established when the demesne ceased to be cultivated by villein labour were all of one type, or in particular that the demesne invariably passed into the hands of one holder. Mention has already been made of the practice of adding the demesne lands, or part of them, to the customary land held by copy of Court Roll, a practice which obviously resulted in maintaining in the hands of small cultivators land which might have gone to build up large properties.