View of the State of Europe During the Middle Ages (Volume 4) (Paperback)

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1821. Excerpt: ... inclosure is not to be overlooked in the history of social progress. By the statute of Merton, in the 20th of Henry III. the lord is permitted to approve, that is to inclose, the waste lands of his manor, provided he leave sufficient common of pasture for the freeholders. Higden, a writer who lived about the time of Richard II., says, in reference to the number of hydes and vills of England at the conquest, that by clearing of woods, and ploughing up wastes, there were many more of each in his age than formerly.* And it might be easily presumed, independently of proof, that woods were cleared, marshes drained, and wastes brought into tillage during the long period that the house of Plantagenet sat on the throne. From manerial surveys indeed and similar instruments, it appears that in some places there was nearly as much ground cultivated in the reign of Edward III. as at the present day. The condition of different counties however was very far from being alike, and in general, the northern and western parts of England were the most backward.f The culture of arable land was very imperfect Fleta remarks, in the reign of Edward I. or II., that unless an acre yielded more than six bushels of corn, the farmer would be a loser and the land yield no rent'* And Sir John Cullum, from very minute accounts, has calculated that nine or ten bushels were a fu.'i average crop on an acre of wheat. An amazing excess of tillage accompanied, and partly I suppose, produced this imperfect cultivation. In Hawsted, for example, under Edward I., there were thirteen or fourteen hundred acres of, arable, and only forty-five of meadow ground. A similar disproportion occurs almost invariably in every account we possess.f This seems inconsistent with the low price of cattle. But we must recollect, that the comm...