grass land already present in the fields was made available for
more profitable use. The Doctor in Hales' dialogue carefully excepts
this sort of enclosure from condemnation:

I meane not all Inclosures, nor yet all commons, but only of such
Inclosures as turneth commonly arable feildes into pastures; and
violent Inclosures, without Recompense of them that haue the
right to comen therein: for if the land weare seuerallie inclosed
to the intent to continue husbandrie theron, and euerie man, that
had Right to commen, had for his portion a pece of the same to
him selfe Inclosed, I thincke no harm but rather good should come
therof, yf euerie man did agre theirto.[112]

In this passage Hales recognizes the theoretical possibility of a
beneficial sort of enclosure, but the conditional form in which his
remarks are thrown indicates that, so far as he knew, there was little
systematic division of the land among the tenants by common consent.

Orderly rearrangement of holdings into compact plots suitable for
enclosure was difficult unless the small holders had all disappeared,
leaving in the community only men of some means, who were able to
undertake the expenses of the readjustment. In most villages,
however, holdings of all sizes were the rule. Some tenants had almost
no land under cultivation, but picked up a living by working for
others, and by keeping a few sheep on the commons and on the fallow
lands of the town. There was thus always a fringe of peasant families
on the verge of destitution. They were being gradually eliminated, but
the process was extremely slow. A few of them in each generation,
feeling as a realized fact the increasing misery which has been
predicted for the modern industrial laborer, were forced to give up
the struggle. Their land passed into the hands of the more prosperous
men, who were thus gradually accumulating most of the land. In some
cases, no doubt, all of the poorer tenantry were drained off in this
fashion, making it possible for those who remained to consolidate
their holdings and enclose them in the fashion advocated by
Fitzherbert, keeping a part under tillage until it needed a rest, and
pasturing sheep and cattle in the closes which were under grass.

It is impossible to estimate the number of these cases. What we do
know is that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries no such stage
had been reached in hundreds of English townships. The e