the space of a hundred years after the coming of the Bastard,
as it were in lieu or recompense of those that William Rufus pulled
down for the erection of his New Forest. For by an old book which I
have, and some time written as it seemeth by an under-sheriff of
Nottingham, I find even in the time of Edward IV. 45,120 parish
churches, and but 60,216 knights' fees, whereof the clergy held as
before 28,015, or at the least 28,000; for so small is the difference
which he doth seem to use. Howbeit, if the assertions of such as write
in our time concerning this matter either are or ought to be of any
credit in this behalf, you shall not find above 17,000 towns and
villages, and 9210 in the whole, which is little more than a fourth
part of the aforesaid number, if it be thoroughly scanned.[3]...

[3] Here follows an allusion to the decay of Eastern cities.--W.

In time past in Lincoln (as the same goeth) there have been
two-and-fifty parish churches, and good record appeareth for
eight-and-thirty, but now, if there be four-and-twenty, it is all.
This inconvenience hath grown altogether to the church by
appropriations made unto monasteries and religious houses--a terrible
canker and enemy to religion.

But to leave this lamentable discourse of so notable and grievous an
inconvenience, growing as I said by encroaching and joining of house
to house and laying land to land, whereby the inhabitants of many
places of our country are devoured and eaten up, and their houses
either altogether pulled down or suffered to decay little by little,
although some time a poor man per adventure doth dwell in one of them,
who, not being able to repair it, suffereth it to fall down--and
thereto thinketh himself very friendly dealt withal, if he may have an
acre of ground assigned unto him, wherein to keep a cow, or wherein to
set cabbages, radishes, parsnips, carrots, melons, pompons,[4] or such
like stuff, by which he and his poor household liveth as by their
principal food, sith they can do no better. And as for wheaten bread,
they eat it when they can reach unto the price of it, contenting
themselves in the meantime with bread made of oats or barley: a poor
estate, God wot! Howbeit, what care our great encroachers? But in
divers places where rich men dwelled some time in good tenements,
there be now no houses at all, but hop-yards, and sheds for poles, or
peradventure gardens, as we may see in Castle Hedingham, and divers
other place