Course:History 344 Nasty Families/Estates and gentry income/Enclosure

One of the many professions that existed in the Stuart age was raising sheep. In order to do this and prevent the problem of wandering sheep, the farmer would have to separate the land used for the sheep from common land. The term enclosure can be defined as “the process of surrounding farm lands with a hedge, cutting off communal access traditionally accorded to the residents of the manor.” (1)

Traditionally, farmers in England used open-field farming in the central regions of England. (2) Open field farming combined three elements: individual peasant holdings in the forms of strips, crop rotation, and common grazing. (3) However, this soon gave way to farming in the form of enclosure. Maintenance of boundaries was a major problem because of the lack of fences. (4)

With open-field farming proving to be lacking in efficiency, both landlords and villagers began to use enclosure to improve their economic potential. Raising sheep was much less labor intensive than crop raising and in the 1600’s wool could go for a nice price in the market and so many landowners sought to bring lands under their control so that they could pasture it. (5) This created a bit of a stir politically since these enclosed spaces were once open land holdings. (6) The landowner would evict or buy out the tenants and they would enclose the desired area apart from the remaining open fields. Enclosure brought on hostility. (7)

This hostility came about for a number of reasons. The landowner had an unfair power advantage politically, legally and economically so this decision of enclosure seemed coercive. (8) Not only that, but the open land was often used by other villagers so even those who had not been tenants of that land were effected, and finally, enclosure not only meant that there were more landless laborers but it also fragmented the traditional structures that villagers had been using for centuries. (9) Regardless of these grievances enclosure did help economically for those who were able to do it.

Problems with Enclosure

Enclosure also produced a few problems for the livestock. More stress was being put on the land and the use of fodder crops and fertilizers became more prevalent. (10) The introduction of new crops had an effect on the toxicity of the native plants increasing the harmful effects of toxic plants. Plants like belladonna, bracken, oats and radishes, mixed with certain new plants became harmful to the animals and caused sudden illnesses, convulsions and frenzy and usually ended in death.(11) St John’s wort is another example that caused frenzy when eaten in a dried state, and would cause the animal to act demented, charge around the field potentially causing injury to other animals and then would usually convulse and die. (12) There are many other examples of how cattle would give blood or curtled milk when being milked, or animals would slowly start wasting away which usually took a period of twenty-one days before they would die. (13) All of these can be attributed to plants that were introduced because of enclosure, the demand that it placed on the land and needing crop fodder or other plants to help sustain the animals. It may also be attributed to food running low for the animals and them eating plants they normally wouldn’t but had to in order to survive. (14)

Economic Advantages of Enclosure

Enclosure was viewed as being extremely profitable. Even in the sixteen and seventeenth centuries, hundreds of years before the process of enclosure was completed, the estimated return from investing in enclosure was nearly double the alternative return from simply buying land. (15)

In the gross rate of returns resulting from enclosure in the period 1600-1839 varies between 9 and 14%(16) as one acre of enclose land was said to be worth one and a half acres on common land. (17) However, it cannot be ignored that the undertaking of enclosure was initially expensive to establish but ultimately the profits were so great that the purchaser might look into obtaining more enclosed land, buying estates to do so. (18)

Pasture was especially seen as being profitable in the sixteenth century because of the rapid increase in the price of wool.(19) In fact wool was one of the more important raw materials as it was valuable to both England’s domestic and foreign markets. (20)

In terms of profits, a quintal of washed wool (equal to 100 pounds) would bring in ₤5 3s. It would take roughly three sheared sheep to accumulate 25 pounds of wool. Twelve sheep would produce 100 pounds of wool, sheared three times a year, bringing in a total of ₤15 9s annually for every twelve sheep a herder owned(21). [BN: Apparently this is from the early eighteenth century?]

1) Jeffery L. Forgeng. Daily Life in Stuart England (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2007) 235.

2) Ibid, 104.

3) Encyclopædia Britannica Online, s. v. "open-field system," accessed January 17, 2012, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/429652/open-field-system.

4) Warren O. Ault Open-Field Framing In Medieval England: A Study of Village By-Laws (Abingdon: Taylor &Francis, 2006) 52.

5) Jeffery L. Forgeng. Daily Life in Stuart England (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2007)106.

6 ) Ibid, 104.

7) Ibid 104.

8) Ibid 105.

9) Ibid, 105.

10 Hickey, Sally. "Fatal Feeds?: Plants, Livestock Losses and Witchcraft Accusations in Tudor and Stuart Britain." Folklore 101, no. 2 (1990): 131-142. MLA International Bibliography, EBSCOhost (accessed February 2, 2012).

11 Ibid.

12 Ibid.

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid.

(15) Gregory Clark, “Common Sense: Common Property Rights, Efficiency, and Institutional change The Journal of Economic History 58, no. 5 (1998): 74, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2566254 (accessed February 6, 2012).

(16)Clark, 75

(17) E.M Leonard, “ The Inclosure of Common Fields in the Seventeenth Century Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 19 (1905): 114, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/3678229 (accessed February 6,2012).

(18) Leonard, 114

(19) Leonard, 116

(20) L.A. Clarkson “The Leather Crafts in Tudor and Stuart England” The Agricultural History Review, 14 (1966): 25, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40273187?seq=1 ( Accessed February 6, 2012)

20. David Brewster, The Edinburgh Encyclopedia, vol. 17, Philadelphia: Joseph Parker (1819): 866.