p to the increase
of sheep-farming and its results. In 1488 a statute was enacted
prohibiting the turning of tillage land into pasture. In 1514 a new
law was passed reenacting this and requiring the repair by their
owners of any houses which had fallen into decay because of the
substitution of pasture for tillage, and their reoccupation with
tenants. In 1517 a commission of investigation into enclosures was
appointed by the government. In 1518 the Lord Chancellor, Cardinal
Wolsey, issued a proclamation requiring all those who had enclosed
lands since 1509 to throw them open again, or else give proof that
their enclosure was for the public advantage. In 1534 the earlier
laws were reenacted and a further provision made that no person
holding rented lands should keep more than twenty-four hundred sheep.
In 1548 a new commission on enclosures was appointed which made
extensive investigations, instituted prosecutions, and recommended new
legislation. A law for more careful enforcement was passed in 1552,
and the old laws were reenacted in 1554 and 1562. This last law was
repealed in 1593, but in 1598 others were enacted and later extended.
In 1624, however, all the laws on the subject were repealed. As a
matter of fact, the laws seem to have been generally ineffective. The
nobility and gentry were in the main in favor of the enclosures, as
they increased their rents even when they were not themselves the
enclosers; and it was through these classes that legislation had to be
enforced at this time if it was to be effective.

[Illustration: Sixteenth Century Manor House and Village, Maddingley,
Cambridgeshire. Nichols: _Progresses of Queen Elizabeth_.]

Besides the official opposition of the government, there were
occasional instances of rioting or violent destruction of hedges and
other enclosures by the people who felt themselves aggrieved by them.
Three times these riots rose to the height of an insurrection. In 1536
the so-called "Pilgrimage of Grace" was a rising of the people partly
in opposition to the introduction of the Reformation, partly in
opposition to enclosures. In 1549 a series of risings occurred, the
most serious of which was the "camp" under Kett in Norfolk, and in
1552 again there was an insurrection in Buckinghamshire. These risings
were harshly repressed by the government. The rural changes,
therefore, progressed steadily, notwithstanding the opposition of the
law, of certain forms of public opinion, and