BURT FRANKLIN RESEARCH & SOURCE WORKS SERIES # 13

THE AGRARIAN PROBLEM IN THE

SIXTEENTH CENTURY

THE

AGRARIAN PROBLEM

IN THE SIXTEENTH

CENTURY

BY
R.H. TAWNEY

WITH 6 MAPS

BURT FRANKLIN RESEARCH & SOURCE WORKS SERIES # 13

BURT FRANKLIN

New York 25, N.Y.

Published by

BURT FRANKLIN

514 West 113th Street

New York 25, N.Y.

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN

LONDON—1912

Printed in U.S.A. by

SENTRY PRESS, INC.

New York 19, N.Y.

TO

WILLIAM TEMPLE and ALBERT MANSBRIDGE

PRESIDENT AND SECRETARY

OF THE

WORKERS' EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION

PREFACE

This book is an attempt to trace one strand in the economic life of England from the close of the Middle Ages to the beginning of the Civil War. As originally planned, it included an account of the relations of the State to trade and manufacturing industry, the growth of which is the most pregnant economic phenomenon of the period. But I soon found that the material was too abundant to be treated satisfactorily in a single work, and I have therefore confined myself in the following pages to a study of agrarian conditions, whose transformation created so much distress, and aroused such searchings of heart among contemporaries. The subject is one upon which much light has been thrown by the researches of eminent scholars, notably Mr. Leadam, Professor Gay, Dr. Savine, and Professor Ashley, and its mediæval background has been firmly drawn in the great works of Maitland, Seebohm, and Professor Vinogradoff. The reader will see that I have availed myself freely of the results of their investigations. But I have tried, as far as the time at my disposal allowed, to base my picture on original authorities, both printed and manuscript.

The supreme interest of economic history lies, it seems to me, in the clue which it offers to the development of those dimly conceived presuppositions as to social expediency which influence the actions not only of statesmen, but of humble individuals and classes, and influence, perhaps, most decisively those who are least conscious of any theoretical bias. On the economic ideas of the sixteenth century in their relation to agrarian conditions I have touched shortly in Part III. of the book, and I hope to treat the whole subject more fully on some future occasion. If in the present work I have given, as I am conscious that I have, undue space to the detailed illustration of particular changes, I must plead that one cannot have the dessert without the dinner, and that a firm foundation of fact, even though as tedious to read as to arrange, is a necessary preliminary to the higher and more philosophical task of analysing economic conceptions. The reader who desires to start with a bird’s-eye view of the subject is advised to turn first to the concluding chapter of Part III.

One word may be allowed in extenuation of the statistical tables, which will be found scattered at intervals through the following pages. In dealing with modern economic conditions it is increasingly recognised that analysis, to be effective, must be quantitative, and one of the disadvantages under which the student of all periods before the eighteenth century labours is that for large departments of life, such as population, foreign trade, and the occupations of the people, anything approaching satisfactory quantitative description is out of the question. The difficulty in the treatment of agrarian history is different. Certain classes of manorial documents offer material which can easily be reduced to a statistical shape. Indeed one difficulty is its very abundance. The first feeling of a person who sees a manuscript collection such as that at Holkham must be “If fifty maids with fifty mops—,” and a sad consciousness that the mop which he wields is a very feeble one. But historical statistics should be regarded with more than ordinary scepticism, inasmuch as they cannot easily be checked by comparison with other sources of information, and it may reasonably be asked whether it is possible to obtain figures that are sufficiently reliable to be used with any confidence. Often, no doubt, it is not possible. The strong point of surveyors was not always arithmetic. The forms in which their information has been cast are sometimes too various to permit of it being used for the purpose of a summary or a comparison. Even when figures are both accurate and comparable the student who works over considerable masses of material will be fortunate if he does not introduce some errors of his own. The tables printed below are marred by all these defects, and I have included them only after considerable hesitation. I have tried to prevent the reader from being misled by pointing out in an appendix what I consider to be their principal faults and ambiguities. But no doubt there are others which have escaped my notice.

It remains for me to express my gratitude to those whose kind assistance has made this work somewhat less imperfect than it would otherwise have been. I have to thank the Warden and Fellows of