ass, enclosed,
and used as pasture. Productivity was gradually restored after some
years of rest, and it became possible to resume cultivation. The
enclosure movement is explained not by a change in the price of wool,
but by the gradual loss of productivity of common-field land.

This explanation is not made here for the first time. It is advanced
in Denton's _England in the Fifteenth Century_[2] and Gardiner, in
his _Student's History of England_,[3] accepts it. Prothero[4] and
Gonner[5] give it some place in their works. Dr. Simkhovitch, at whose
suggestion this inquiry was undertaken, has for some time been of the
opinion that deterioration of the soil was the fundamental cause of
the displacement of arable farming by grazing.[6] This explanation,
however, stands at the present time as an unverified hypothesis, which
has been specifically rejected by Gibbins, in his widely used
text-book,[7] and by Hasbach,[8] who objects that Denton does not
prove his case. In this respect the theory is no more to be criticised
than the theory which these authorities accept, for that does not rest
upon proof, but upon the prestige gained through frequent repetition.
But the matter need not rest here. It is unnecessary to accept any
hypothetical account of events which are, after all, comparatively
recent, and for which the evidence is available.

Of the various sources accessible for the study of the English
enclosure movement, one type only has been extensively used by
historians. The whole story of this movement as it is usually told is
based upon tracts, sermons, verses, proclamations, etc. of the
sixteenth century--upon the literature of protest called forth by the
social distress caused by enclosure. Until very recently the similar
literature of the seventeenth century has been neglected, although it
destroys the basis of assumptions which are fundamental to the
orthodox account of the movement. Much of significance even in the
literature of the sixteenth century has been passed over--notably
certain striking passages in statutes of the latter half of the
century, and in books on husbandry of the first half. Details of
manorial history derived from the account rolls of the manors
themselves, and contemporary manorial maps and surveys, as well as the
records of the actual market prices of grain and wool, have been
ignored in the construction of an hypothetical account of the movement
which breaks down whenever verification by