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Agricultural History Review Volume 27 Par.T Ii ' 1979

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Agricultural History Review Volume 27 Par.T Ii ' 1979 VOLUME 27 I979 PART I Written Leases and their Impact on Scottish Agriculture in the Seventeenth Century IAN D. WHYTE Land Measurement in England, z z 5o-I 350 ANDreW JON~S The Changing Distribution of Breeds of Sheep in Scotland, i795-z965 W.J. CARLYLn The Diffusion of Knowledge among Northumberland Farmers, I78o-I 8 i 5 STUART MACDONALD The Landlord and Agricultural Transfomlation, 187o-I9oo: A Comment on P,.ichard Perren's Hypothesis CORMAC (3 GmfDA The Landlord and Agricultural Transformation, z 87o-I9oo: A Rejoinder I~ICHARD PERREN The Trade in Pedigree Livestock I85o-I9Io EmTH H. WH~THAM Annual List and Brief Review of Articles on Agrarian History, I977 R.AINE MORGAN THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW VOLUME z7 PART I • r979 Contents Written Leases and their hnpact on Scottish Agriculture in the Seventeend~ Century IAN D. WI-IYTE page Land Measurement in England, I 15o-x 350 ANDREW JONES IO The Changing Distribution of Breeds of Sheep in Scotland, W95-I965 w.j. CARLYLE t9 The Diffusion of Knowledge among Northumberland Farmers, I78o-I 815 STUART MACDONALD 30 The Landlord and Agricultural Transformation, 1870-I900: A Comment on Richard Perren's Hypothesis CORMAC 6 GR/[DA 4o The Landlord and Agricultural Transformation, 187o-x9oo: A Kejoinder RICHARD PERREN 43 The Trade in Pedigree Livestock, 185o-i9Io EDITH H. WHETHAM 47 Annual List and Brief R.eview of Articles on Agrarian History, I977 RAINE MORGAN 5I Book Keviews: World Prehistory in New Perspective, by Grahame Clark AXEL STEENSBERG 59 Farms, Farmers and Socict),, Systems of Food Production and Potmlation N.mbers, by G. E. Fussell MICHAELItAVINDEN 59 The Morphologicaland Tem~rialStr.ct.re ~f,l Yorkshire Township: Preston in Holdenless, 1o66-175o, by Mary Harvey DAVID HEY 6o Court Rolls of the M~aor ofAcomb, cd. by Harold Richardson ANDREWJONES 60 Les comptes de la ch&ellenie de Lamballe, 1387-148& by Moniquc Chauvin MICHAELJONES 6o Probate hwentories and ManorialExcepts of Chetmole, Leigh and Yetmhmcr, ed. by 1-Z.Machin J, P. COOPER 6r Crisis and Development: An Ecological Case Study o[ the Forest of Arde., UTO-S674, by Victor Skipp DAVID IIEY 6~ Economic Policy and Projects: The Deveh,pnlent of a Consunler Society in Early Modern England, by Joan Thirsk JOHN WHYMAN 62 Estudis d'Histbria Agraria, Centre D'Esmdis Histbrics Internacionals JOSEPH HARRISON 64 Scottish Population History fi'om the Seventeenth Century to the 193o's, by M. W. Flinn eta[. W. A. ARMSTRONG 64 Climatic Clmnge, Agriculture aM Settlement, by M. L. Parry DAVID KEMP 65 The Economy of Upland Britain, 175o-195o: An Illustrated Revie,,, by E.J.T. Collins G. E. MINGAY 66 (continuedon page iii of cover) Written Leases and their Impact on Scottish Agriculture in the Seventeenth Century'* By IAN D. WHYTE ROM the sixteenth-century historian John lated a system of annual leasing, 5 while others Major 1 onwards, most people who have have extended the normal duration of a written F written about Scottish rural society before lease to three or five years. ° the classic period of improvement in the later It has been claimed that the principal effect of eighteenth century have stressed the detri- this situation was to prevent agricultural im- mental effects of insecurity of tenure on the provement on the part of the tenant by denying condition of the tenantry and standards of hus- him a long-term stake in the land whi& he bandry. This topic is particularly important in farmed. Thus, Thomas Motet, visiting Scot- a Scottish context because of the polarization land in I689, attributed the lack of enclosures of rural society into two contrasting classes: to the supposed prevalence of short leases.7 Late the landlords, and the tenants. Scotland was seventeenth-century Scottish writers, such as notably deficient in small owner-occupiers Lord Belhaven and Andrew Flet&er of Sal- compared with England. 2 There was no direct tom a, favoured the granting of longer leases as equivalent of the English copyholder, and the an incentive to improvement. 8 Under such only group of tenants who had managed to conditions of insecurity it has been assumed that acquire any rights of hereditary occupation, a tenant would have had no incentive to invest the kindly tenants, were becoming increasingly labour or capital in his holding. Conversely, rare during the sixteenth century. 3 The ways the introduction of written leases, particularly in which the ordinary tenants held their land for substantial periods of time, has been viewed thus assume considerable importance for the as a major step in agricultural improvement, study ofpre-improvement agriculture in Scot- and has been regarded as an innovation of early land. eighteenth-century improvers such as Cock- In the past, two assmnptions have been made burn of Ormiston and Grant of Monymusk? regarding tenure in the pre-improvement Most writers have considered that the intro- period. The first is that husbandmen were duction of written leases into Scottish agricul- ahnost all tenants-at-will, holding their land ture in significant numbers was an eighteenth- without written leases, and liable to eviction E.g.H. Fairhurst, 'The Study of Deserted Medieval with little warning at the whim of the pro- Settlements in Scotland', in M. W. Beresford and J. G. prietor. 4 The second is that where written Hunt (eds.) Deserted Medieval Villages, I97:, p. 232. leases were granted, they were invariably for 6 E.g. Grant, op. cit., p. 254; J. A. Symon, Scottish Farming, Past and Present, I959, p. 67; H. Hamilton, An very short periods: some writers have postu- Economic History of Scotland in the Eighteenth Century, * The author wishes to express his thanks to his wife Edinburgh, I963, p. 5x ; J. E. Handley, Scottish Farming for reading the draft of this paper, and for many valuable in the Eighteenth Century, Edinburgh, 1953, p. 85 ; Smout, suggestions. op. cir., p. I37. 1 John Major, 'Description of Scotland, I52I' in P. H. T. Morer, 'A Short Account of Scotland, I689% in Brown, Scotland Before ~7oo, Edinburgh, I893, p. 45. P. H. Brown, Early Travellers in Scotland, Edinburgh, T. C. Smout, A History of the Scottish People, x56o- 189I, p. 267. x83o, I969, p. i28. s John Hamilton, Lord Belhaven, The Countrey-Man's 3 I. F. Grant, The Social and Economic Development of Rudiments or an Advice to the Farmers of East Lothian Scotland Before i6o3, Edinburgh, I93o, p. 248; Smout, Hozo to Labour and Improve their Ground, Edinburgh, op. cit., pp. i37-8. I699, p. 36; Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, Two Discourses 4 E.g.W. Ferguson, Scotland, x689 to the Present, Edin- Concerning the Affairs of Scotland, I698, Second Dis- burgh, I968, p. 73 ; Smout, op. cir., p. I37 ; R. Mitehison, course, p. 38. A History of Scotland, x97o, p. 296. 9 E.g. Symon, op. tit., p. Io7; Smout, op. clt., p. 274. THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW century phenomenon36 Only Donaldson has !Lecord Office mad National Library of Scot- suggested that their development might extend land. Some 3,000 leases from over ioo estates back into the seventeenfll century3 ~ However, have been used. Other leases are concealed by as with other aspects ofpre-improvement agri- the generalized catalogue entries of some culture, modern writers may have been unduly S.K.O. haaadlists, and it is probable that con- influenced by the tmfavourable and sometimes siderably greater numbers survive in private uninformed comments of the Improvers them- hands. Nevertheless, it is hoped that the sample selves on the practices of their predecessors3" is sufficiently large to allow some firm conclu- The seventeenth century has often been dis- sions to be drawn. missed as a period of stagnation or even decline in Scottish agricuhure33 However, the study OCCURRENCE AND CHARACTER OF THE of contemporary estate papers and other LEASES sources, rather than later, potentially biased An examination of surviving leases supports material, has demonstrated fllat significant de- Donaldson's theory that flmir introduction in velopments did occur in Scottish agriculture at significant numbers first occurred in the early this time34 This in itself suggests the need for a seventeenth rather than the early eighteenth re-examination of the question of tenure. If century. Scattered leases of holdings o11 lay agriculture was changing to the extent which estates have survived from the sixteenth cen- the evidence seems to indicate, then it is pos- tury, and there are even a few from tile fifteenth sible that such chaaiges were accompanied, and century. These are rare, however, lkecords such perhaps partly initiated, by improvements in as the rental book of the abbey of Coupar the tenurial position of the husbandmen. How- Angus show that written leases were granted ever, in addition, when considering the tradi- on some Scottish monastic estates in the early tional theories of pre-improvement tenure in sixteenth century. 15 These estates were noted Scotland it is necessary to account for the for their progressive approach to agriculture bundles of written leases, or tacks as they were and estate management, and appear to have known, which bulk large in many collections been ahead of lay estates in this practice, 16 but of estate papers in the Scottish tkecord Office such organization did not survive the Ikeforma- and in the National Kegister of Archives hand- tion. Written leases seem to have been the lists. These leases, together with other seven- exception on lay estates in the second half of the teenth-century estate papers, have so far re- sixteenth century. It seems reasonable therefore ceived little attention. to conclude that while written leases were This paper assesses the question of tenure in known before the end of the sixteenth century, seventeenth-century Scotland based on a sur- there was no continuing tradition of granting vey of contemporary manuscript evidence, them in significant numbers.
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