11. Privatising the Land

 

At the end of the last post, I described the failing agriculture and the dramatic fall in population in the 1300s. 

Recovery was slow. The feudal system was already in decline, but now labour shortages put the peasants and serfs in a position to weaken the ties of servitude and demand better wages from the landowners. 

Working for the Man.

This had consequences. Landowners who could no longer rely on the peasantry to do their farming for them sought to rent their land out, often to the same peasants. (The word 'farmer' now appears. It is derived from the medieval Latin 'firmarius', someone who rents, not farms). Many found that pastoral farming was less labour-intensive and that sheep bred for wool were more profitable, while the new tenant farmers were incentivised to improve their lot. All this led to the creation of fenced and hedged boundaries around previously open land to mark ownership and manage livestock. This 'enclosure' of previously open fields was one of the first great 'privatisations', and in many places, it put an end to the 'champion countryside'. 

Overall, many people found themselves better off from all this. Why let a good plague go to waste? A new and wealthy class of landowners grew from the swathes of land purchased or leased from the aristocracy. Later, many profited further when Henry VIII sold off the monasteries' estates. The number of tenant farmers quickly grew, and the population as a whole ate better and lived longer in greater comfort. You can see the evidence today. If you look at the oldest timber-framed houses in the villages, few predate the 1400s -1600s. (See my post on Cottages. Link: The Olde Country Cottage). 

However, there was a downside: the poorer folk who could not afford to rent land were marginalised. The common land that was most used by the poor was fenced off, fewer people were needed to till the remaining arable land and communities that had been based on co-operation were fractured. 

What? Me? 

The enclosures radically changed society and the landscape. Until then, little of the old lowland landscape with its communally farmed, wide open ‘strip farming’ fields and commons would have been obstructed by woodland, let alone a clutter of fences and hedges. All that changed. 

In places, all this was driven by shared interest and agreement or by individuals enclosing land they had been using anyway. But powerful landowners inevitably played a leading role,  turbo-charging profits by evicting the tenants by fair means or foul and focusing in particular on profitable wool production. It was said at the time that 'sheep devoured men'. 

Alongside the labour shortage, the wool trade was another major catalyst for change. The gormless beasts had always been an important part of the English economy, and together with later ancillary industries like fulling, napping, dyeing and weaving, they were the powerhouse of the economy in general and trade in particular. From the late Middle Ages to the second Industrial Revolution, wool was as central to it as iron and coal became later. 

Wool was England's biggest export up until the time of the Republic. Thereafter, it was the finished product and, in particular, 'broadcloth'. This was partly to circumvent the trade obstacles thrown up by the relentless procession of wars. Many drainage schemes were introduced, and more attention was paid to breeding, the quality of the grazing and the processing techniques.   

With the onset of the industrial revolution, the associated cottage industries like weaving went into decline as mechanisation transformed production, with the spinning jennies, water frames, power looms and fulling machines. Its decline from then on was relative to other major export goods rather than in absolute terms, but a lot of that later stage processing was in the North East and West country, and the growth of the cotton trade robbed it of its pole position in the textiles export trade. 

Where did those profits go? As mentioned earlier, the houses in the villages usually date back to then. Increasing wealth resulted in better and more substantial buildings, which were more likely to survive. And if you ever wonder why small villages sometimes sport grand churches, the answer is usually that someone was investing in improving their chance of enjoying life in the hereafter in much the same ways as the billionaires today try to safeguard their future by planning to move into space. 

The Ram Inn, Minchinhampton

Nowadays, much of the fine wool used in clothing is imported from places like Australia, where a warmer climate means that the sheep themselves don't need a warm coat. English wool is used where a robust fibre is preferred, like coats and carpets. 

The issue lay at the heart of politics for several centuries. You might have expected that Parliament would play a positive role, but even in the republic of Cromwell's time, it represented the interests of the owners of land and property rather than the population as a whole. This was reflected in the suffrage. The voters were nearly all men of means. In contrast, Monarchs sometimes tried, albeit ineffectually,  to protect the welfare of the lower orders from the more egregious predations of both the aristocratic and other major plutocratic landowners.

Cromwell the Landowner and Charles 1st

Monarchs were disposed of after the Civil War and Cromwell's republic in the late 1600s, when the enclosure of land could be sped up using an Act of Parliament. This sometimes covered whole parishes, and while the various Acts came with conditions aimed at ensuring a degree of equity, they remained generally more responsive to landowner interests.

Initially, these enclosures were haphazard and varied a lot between places. However, as time progressed and particularly after Parliament got involved, in many places a 'planned' landscape emerged, characterised by a checkerboard of bounded, geometrical fields in single ownership, and with fewer footpaths and more, wider and rationally aligned roads, sometimes in a loose grid. (I suspect many of the straight roads fancifully attributed to the Romans actually date back to these times). This had advantages in terms of economic (if not social) efficiency, and many of these new, large landowners had the will and wherewithal to invest in improvements like drainage and soil improvement. 

Ancient field drains

This was never a universal pattern. In the Southeast, it mainly affected the lowland areas in the South Midlands and Essex, the open downlands and the clay vales around Aylesbury and west of Oxford. Elsewhere, south of the Thames and in the Chilterns, the broad pattern of use with more woodland and smaller farms, hedged fields and winding lanes survived. It is England's 'bocage'. Both patterns have survived and continue to dominate the rural landscape, with the planned countryside more impacted by the growth of towns and new roads. 

Ancient Countryside

A good example of the impact of enclosure, and these 'improvements' can be seen in the communities around Otmoor, near Bicester in Oxfordshire, where the local population had adjusted to life in the common land of the marshes. When plans were made to drain and rationalise them in the early 1800s, they rioted. This gave rise to the famous rhyme: The law locks up the man or woman /  Who steals the goose off the common  / But leaves the greater villain loose / Who steals the common from the goose.

The Otmoor Riots

In the map extracts below, you can see how the Enclosures on Otmoor were followed by a drainage scheme. (The footpaths are recent and recently created as part of a nature reserve.) 

Otmoor

Compare this with the map of the higher ground around Beckley, a mile to the south, with small, irregular fields and meandering footpaths.

Beckley

The switch from collective to individual endeavour and land ownership had other surviving impacts on the layout of the countryside. For instance, it became more convenient for people to build freestanding and often isolated houses on their own parcel of land rather than in the villages, which became the service centres they are today.

A later and insidious form of Enclosure was practised by the growing number of very large estates owned by the status-seeking 'landed gentry' or the newly wealthy. Initially, these often comprised a large manor house and farm with some parkland. Later, the estates got even larger and the buildings more palatial. You can still see many of them around the southeast. Blenheim, Knebworth, Hatfield and Waddesdon are classic examples. 

Blenheim

In 1786, two future Presidents of the United States, Adams and Jefferson, visited some of these great houses. They pronounced them beautiful but were disgusted by how they were financed!  As usual, the peasants often paid the price. Dispossession by greedy landowners was common. Villages were destroyed, and people's livelihoods ruined, to make room for them.

This series of posts started with the Big Bang and ends with the landscapes we see today. There is a story and a reason for the rational patchwork of fields in the lowlands and open downs, and the seemingly random scattering of smaller farms and woodland in the ancient countryside, all punctuated by the odd grand estate. Post 1-8 in this series on oildrumlance.co.uk and pootler.co.uk are identical. If you want more detail on the landscape in the home counties north of the Thames, posts 9 - 13 on www.pootler.com are extended versions of posts 9- 11 here and focus on what you can see of the legacy of the past in today's countryside.