which the country fell can hardly be
considered less than a catastrophe. With the growing independence of the
people there was created after the 13th century an unsettled
"masterless" class, a residue of failure resulting from social changes,
which was large and important enough to call for legislation. In the
15th century, "the golden age of the English labourer," the towns
increased and flourished. Both town and country did well. At the end of
the century came the decadence. The measure of the strain, when perhaps
it had reached its lowest level, is indicated by the following
comparison: "The cost of a peasant's family of four in the early part of
the 14th century was L3:4:9; after 1540 it was L8" (Rogers, _Hist, of
Agric. and Prices_, iv. 756).

The cause of this has now been fairly investigated. The value of land
in the 13th century generally depended chiefly on "the head of labour"
retained upon it. Its fertility depended on mainoeuvre (manure). To
keep labour upon it was therefore the aim of the lord or owner. The
enclosing of lands for sheep began early, and in the time of Edward
III., in the great days of the woolstaple, must have been extensive.
So long as the demand for the exportation of wool, and then for its
consumption at home in the cloth trade, continued, the towns
prospered, and the enclosures did not become a grievance. Even before
the reign of Henry VII., with the decay of trade, the towns decayed,
and their population in some cases diminished extraordinarily. This
reacted on the country, where the great families had already become
impoverished, and were hardly able to support their retainers. In
Henry VIII.'s time the lands of the religious houses were confiscated.
Worked on old lines, the custom of tillage remained in force on them.
Accordingly, when these estates fell into private hands they were
transferred subject to the condition that they should be tilled as
heretofore. The condition was evaded by the new owners, and the
disbandment of farm labourers went on apace. In England and Wales
these changes, it is said, affected a third of the country, more than
12,000,000 acres, if the estimates be correct, or rather a third of
the best land in the kingdom. With towns decaying, the effect of this
must have been terrible. What were really "latifundia" were created,
"great landes," "enclosures of a mile or two or thereabouts ...
destroying thereby not on