[53] Pauli, _Drei volkswirthschaftliche Denkschriften aus der Zeit Heinrichs VIII. von England_: How to reform the Realme in setting them to work, and to restore tillage. "The whole welth of the body of the realm riseth out of labours and workes of the common people."
[54] _The Commonweal of this Realm of England_ (Lamond), p. 63: "And I marvell no man taketh heade unto it, what nombre first of trifles cometh hether from beyonde the seas, that we might either clene spare, or els make them within oure owne Realme, for the which we paie inestimable treasure every yeare, or els exchange substanciall wares and necessaries for them." E. E. T. S., _England in the Reign of King Henry VIII._, Part II., p. 84: "Craftys men and makers of tryfullys are too many." Harrison in _Elizebethan England_ (Withington), p. 15: "O how many trades and handicrafts are now in England whereof the Commonwealth hath no need!" &c.
[55] _e.g._ the prayer for merchants in Edward VI.'s _Book of Private Prayer_: "So occupy their merchandise without fraud, guile, or deceit."
[56] _Coventry Leet Book_, Part III., pp. 679-680.
[57] See Smith, _De Republica Anglorum_, Lib. I. c. 23: "These are they which in the old world got that honour to Englande ... because they be so manie in number, so obedient at the Lorde's call, so strong of bodie, so hard to endure paine, so courageous to adventure ... these were the good archers in times past, and the stable troops of footmen that affaide all France that would rather die all, than once abandon the knight or gentleman their captaine," and Harrison in _Elizabethan England_ (Withington), pp. 11-13.
[58] E. E. T. S., _England in the Reign of King Henry VIII._, Starkey's Dialogue, Part II., p. 49: "To the handes are resemblyd both craftysmen and warryarys.... To the fete the plowmen and tyllarys of the ground, beycause they, by theyr labour, susteyne and support the rest of the body."
The manorial documents supply us with much information about the landholders, and though we cannot say what proportion[59] they formed of the population, we ought to be able to say with some certainty the relative numbers of different classes among them. In the surveys and rentals of the period persons holding land may usually be divided roughly according to the nature of their tenure into three groups--freeholders, customary tenants, and leaseholders. This classification[60] of course is an elastic and tentative one, which raises almost as many questions as it settles. The customary tenure of one part of the country differs very much from the customary tenure of another part. Customary tenants include copyholders and the vast majority of tenants at will, who are holding customary land, and who are often entered under the latter heading merely because the surveyor did not trouble to set out their full description. But tenancy at will is sometimes used to describe the condition, not only of the holder of customary land, but also of men who are mere squatters on the waste or on the demesne, and who are not protected in their holdings by any manorial custom. Again, it is not always easy to draw a line between copyhold and leasehold. On a manor where the custom is least favourable to the tenants' interests the former shades into the latter. There is not much difference, for example, between a lease for thirty-three years and a copyhold for life. Again, the classification is one of tenures not of tenants. In parts of England, it is true, it does divide individual tenants with almost complete exhaustiveness and precision. In most districts, for example, the free tenant usually holds freehold land and nothing else, the customary tenant customary land and no other. But in East Anglia there is no such simplicity of arrangement, no such permanence of tenurial compartments. Many free tenants hold land which is said to be bond or villein or customary land; many customary tenants hold free land; many of both have added to their holdings by leasing parts of the demesne or of the waste, and though in this respect the Eastern counties are exceptional, it is in them often impossible to say in what class any individual should be placed.