The Statute of Merton confirmed that a lord of the manor could enclose (privatize) parts of common land if enough pasture remained for tenants. This principle helped shape later disputes over common rights and set an early legal foundation that enclosure advocates could point to in later centuries.
By the 1400s and early 1500s, many landlords enclosed open fields and commons to expand sheep pasture and raise rents. This shift reduced access to shared resources for many villagers and began to weaken the everyday economic role of the manor’s common-field system.
As unrest grew over depopulation and loss of common rights, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey led national enquiries into enclosure and related problems. These investigations aimed to identify illegal or harmful enclosures and to reassert government control over rural change, even though enclosure continued in many places.
In 1549, large numbers of people in Norfolk rose up in a revolt strongly tied to anger over enclosure of common land. The rebellion began with the destruction of fences and hedges and became a major challenge to local and royal authority, showing how enclosure could trigger organized resistance.
In 1604, Parliament authorized an enclosure by Act, a method that would become increasingly important over time. Using Parliament made enclosure harder to challenge locally, and it helped move land reorganization from manorial custom toward formal statutory processes.
In 1607, protests in Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, and Leicestershire targeted enclosures and the loss of common rights. The disturbances, often called the Midland Revolt, drew large crowds and were suppressed, illustrating continuing conflict as land was reorganized and manorial protections weakened.
From the mid-1700s, enclosure by parliamentary act became the normal way to reorganize open fields and commons. This period is closely linked to agricultural “improvement,” but it also reduced shared access to pasture, fuel, and other resources that many households relied on in manorial communities.
The Inclosure Act 1773 set out a clearer national procedure for pursuing enclosure, beginning with petitions and later involving commissioners. By making enclosure more routine and legally structured, the act helped speed the conversion of customary, communal land use into individually controlled parcels.
The Inclosure (Consolidation) Act 1801 brought together common provisions that had been repeatedly used in individual enclosure acts. This made it easier to draft and apply new enclosure laws, reinforcing the shift away from manorial custom toward uniform statutory administration.
The Inclosure Act 1845 created the Inclosure Commission, moving enclosure administration toward a standing national body rather than ad hoc local commissioners and private acts. This institutional change supported continued enclosure while also formalizing recordkeeping and oversight through government processes.
By the 1800s, long-running enclosure campaigns had transformed much of England’s open-field landscape into hedged, individually managed farms. Over time, this reduced the practical role of manorial common rights and helped replace manorial regulation with market-based landholding and modern local government functions.
In 1922, the Law of Property Act abolished copyhold tenure, a key legal leftover of manorial landholding recorded in manor court rolls. This change is widely treated as marking the end of the manorial system’s last meaningful function, closing the long transition from customary manorial governance to modern property law.
Enclosure and the Decline of the Manorial System in England (16th–18th centuries)